tibrarp  of  Che  theological  gcminavy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of 
Rev.  Robert  0.  Kirkwood 


BX  5937  .B83  V5  1910 
Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-1893, 
Visions  and  tasks,  and  othei 
sermons 


Phillips  Brooks's  Sermons 


In  Ten  Volumes 
1st  Series     The  Purpose  and  Use  of  Comfort 

And  Other  Sermons 

2d  Series  The  Candle  of  the  Lord 

And  Other  Sermons 

3d  Series         Sermons  Preached  in  English 
Churches 

And  Other  Sermons 
4th  Series      Visions  and  Tasks      And  Other  Sermons 

5th  Series  The  Light  of  the  World 

And  Other  Sermons 
6th  Series      The  Battle  Of   Life      And  Other  Sermons 

7th  Series    Sermons  for  the  Principal  Festi- 
vals and  Fasts  of  the  Church  Year 

Edited  by  the  Rev.  John  Cotton  Brooks 
8th  Series      New  Starts  in  Life     And  Other  Sermons 

9th  Series  The  Law  of  Growth 

And  Other  Sermons 
10th  Series  Seeking  Life      And  Other  Sermons 

E.   P.   Dutton   and   Company 

31  West  23d  Street  New  York 


Visions  and  Tasks 


And  Other  Sermons 


By  the 
Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.D. 


Fourth  Series 


N EW YORK 

E  P  •  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

31  West  Twenty-Third  Street 
I  9  I  O 


Copyright,  1886 
(Twenty  Sermons) 

BY 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 
This  volume  was  originally  published  as  "  Twenty  Sermons  " 


T£bc  *n(chcrboclicr  prcos.  Hew  lorh 


TO    THE    MEMORY    OF 

jFrebertck  iBrooks 

I    INSCRIBE    THESE    SERMONS. 


CONTENTS. 

SERMON   I. 
Wtstons  cmb  GTasks. 

PAGE 

11  While  Peter  thought  on  the  vision,  the  Spirit  said  unto  him, 
Behold,  three  men  seek  thee." — Acts  x.  19  .        .        .1 

SERMON   II. 

®ije  jlotljcr's  flflonber. 

"Son,  why  hast  thou  thus  dealt  ivith  us  ?" — Luke  li.  48    .        .    20 

SERMON   III. 
Wqz  Cljurct)  of  tije  Chung  Ok>b- 

"  The  Church  of  the  living  God."—l  Tim.  iii.  15        .        .        .42 

SERMON   IV. 
Staubtng  before  ©ob. 

"  And  I  saiv  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God." — 
Revelation  xx.  12 60 

SERMON   V. 
Bro%rtjoob  in  €tjrtsi 

"  Simon,  called  Peter,  and  Andrew,  his  brother  ;  James  the  son 
of  Zebedee,  and  John  his  brother." — Matthew  x.  2      .         .76 

v 


vi  Contents. 

SERMON  VI. 

©Ije  (ftiant  roitlj  tlje  MJoimbeb  $eel. 

PAGE 

''And  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman,  and  be- 
tween thy  seed  and  her  seed.  It  shall  bruise  thy  head,  and 
thou  shall  bruise  his  heel." — Genesis  iii.  15.  93 

SERMON   VII. 

©Ije  Sea  of  ©lass  jlingleb  roiiij  Mn. 

"And  I  saw  as  it  were  a  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire,  and  them 
that  had  gotten  the  victory  over  the  beast".  .  .  stand  on 
the  sea  of  glass,  having  the  M  harps  of  God." — Revelation 
xv.  2 110 

SERMON  VIII. 

©Ije  {Beautiful  ©ate  of  tlje  ©emple. 

"  The  Beautiful  gate  of  the  temple."— Acts  iii.  10.  .        .        .  127 
SERMON   IX. 

Disciples  anb  Apostles. 

"  And  when  it  was  day  he  called  unto  him  his  disciples,  and  of 
them  he  chose  twelve,  tchom  also  he  named  Apostles." — Luke 
vi.  13 152 

SERMON  X. 
©Ije  ©art!}  of  tlje  fteoempiion. 

u  The  heavens,  even  the  heavens  are  the  Lord's  :  but  the  earth 
hath  he  given  to  the  children  of  men." — Psalm  cxv.  16.        .  173 

SERMON  XI. 

Slje  jlan  roitl)  fllroo  ©alcnts. 

"  To  another  he  gave  tico  talents.''— Matthew  xxv.  15      .         .  192 


Contents.  vii 

SERMON  XII. 

D-estmcttott  mtb  4fal|Um£nt 

PAGB 

"  lam  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.'' — Matthew  v.  17.      .  210 
SERMON  XIII. 

Makz  tlje  Mm  Mt  JDottm. 

"And  Jesus  said,  Make  the  men  sit  down." — John  vi.  10.        .  226 
SERMON  XIV. 

"  He  hath  made  everything  beautiful  in  his  time." — Ecclesias- 
tes  ill.  11 244 

SERMON  XV. 

Wqz  Stnorb  #a%b  in  tyzanzn. 

"For  my  sword  shall  be  bathed  in  heaven." — Isaiah  xxxiv.  5.   .  262 
SERMON  XVI. 

"  As  the  Father  Jcnoweth  me,  even  so  know  I  the  Father." — St. 
John  x.  15 

u  Then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." — 1  Corinthi- 
ans xiii.  12 280 

SERMON  XVII. 

&n  (ftml  Spirit  from  itje  Corb. 

"  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  departed  from  Saul,  and  an  evil  spirit 
from  the  Lord  troubled  him." — 1  Samuel  xvi.  14.        .        .  297 


viii     *  Contents. 

SERMON   XVIII. 
©mttg  up  to  Stents  ctlem. 

PAGE 

"Then  Jesus  tooJc  unto  him  the  twelve,  and  said  unto  them,  Behold, 
we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  all  things  that  are  written  concern- 
ing the  Son  of  man  shall  be  accomplished." — Luke  xviii.  30.  316 

SERMON   XIX. 

©jje  Safttn  cmb  helpfulness  of  iuttlj. 

"They  shall  take  up  serpents,  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing 
it  shall  not  harm  them.  Tliey  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and 
they  shall  recover." — Maek  xvi.  18 333 

SERMON   XX. 
©jje  ©real  dfcpeciatton. 

"Let  your  moderation  he  known  unto  all  men.  The  Lord  is  at 
hand." — Phlllippians  iv.  4 353 


SERMON  I. 

"  While  Peter  thought  on  the  vision,  the  Spirit  said  unto  him.  Behold, 
three  men  seek  thee." — Acts  x.  19. 

THESE  words  recall  to  many  of  you  a  most  fa- 
miliar picture,  for  the  story  of  St.  Peter's  vision 
is  one  of  those  passages  of  the  New  Testament  which 
have  almost  become  the  proverbs  of  mankind.  Peter 
had  been  sitting  on  the  top  of  Simon's  house  at  Jaffa, 
and  there  had  been  shown  to  him  the  sight  of  the 
great  sheet  full  of  all  living  beasts,  of  which  he  had 
been  bidden  to  take  and  eat.  And  when  he  hesi- 
tated, you  remember  how  a  voice  had  spoken  to  him, 
and  rebuked  the  narrow  punctiliousness  with  which 
he  drew  distinctions,  and  thought  some  of  God's 
creatures  clean  and  others  unclean.  He  was  sitting 
there,  pondering  this  vision,  "doubting  in  himself 
what  the  vision  which  he  had  seen  should  mean." 
A  new  idea  had  come  to  him.  He  saw  it  very  vaguely ; 
and  its  developments,  what  it  would  lead  to  if  he 
followed  it  out,  he  could  not  see  at  all.  It  was  all 
abstract  and  impalpable.  It  just  bewildered  and 
eluded  him.  But  as  he  sat  there,  steps  were  heard 
below,  and  to    his    mind  the  Spirit  spoke,   saying. 


Visions  and  Tasks. 


"  Three  men  are  asking  for  thee."  They  were  the 
servants  of  Cornelius,  the  Gentile,  coming  to  ask 
him  to  visit  their  master.  Their  visit  gave  him 
immediately  the  chance  to  put  in  action  the  idea 
which  had  possessed  him.  Our  verse  shows  him 
then  standing  between  the  vision  and  its  appli- 
cation. On  the  one  side  of  him  was  the  mysterious 
sheet  full  of  the  multitude  of  beasts ;  on  the  other 
side  were  the  three  men  who  needed  just  the  princi- 
ple which  the  sheet-full  of  beasts  involved.  It  was 
a  critical  moment.  The  question  was  whether  the 
vision  could  pass  through  Peter  to  the  three  men 
and  Cornelius.  When  on  the  morrow  he  "  went  away 
with  them,"  the  question  was  decided,  and  the  idea 
and  its  appropriate  duty  had  joined  hands. 

Man  standing  between  his  visions  and  his  tasks — 
that  is  the  subject  of  our  verse  then.  That  is  our 
subject  for  this  morning.  It  is  the  place  where 
certain  men  are  often  called  upon  peculiarly  to 
stand ;  and  in  some  degree  it  is  the  place  in  which 
all  men  are  standing  always.  For  every  man  has 
visions,  glimpses  clearer  or  duller,  now  bright  and 
beautiful,  now  clouded  and  obscure,  of  what  is  abso- 
lutely and  abstractly  true ;  and  every  man  also  has 
pressing  on  him  the  warm,  clear  lives  of  fellow-men. 
There  is  the  world  of  truths  on  one  side,  and  there 
is  the  world  of  men  upon  the  other.  Between  the 
two  stands  man;  and  these  two  worlds,  if  man  is 
what  he  ought  to  be,  meet  through  his  nature. 

Think  of  an  instance,  and  you  will  see  what  I 
mean.     Here  are  you,  a  thoughtful,  meditative  man. 


Visions  and  Tasks. 


You  have  been  pondering  and  studying.  Some- 
how it  has  become  clear  to  you,  let  us  say,  that 
there  is  a  God.  The  supernatural  behind  the 
natural,  the  will  behind  all  forces,  has  revealed 
itself  to  you.  For  the  moment,  it  is  enough  for 
you  just  to  know  that  mighty  truth.  Turning  it 
this  way  and  that,  you  think  in  one  view  and 
another  how  mighty  it  is.  But  very  soon,  if  you 
are  a  true  man,  your  nature  begins  to  hear  and  feel 
a  stir  upon  the  other  side  of  it.  Under  the  win- 
dows which  look  towards  the  world,  the  tumult  of 
the  needy  life  of  your  fellow-men  comes  rising  up 
to  you.  Perhaps  it  is  more  definite  than  that,  and 
certain  special  fellow-men  come,  with  footsteps  which 
you  can  hear,  up  to  your  hearts'  doors  and  knock. 
At  first  their  coming  seems  to  be  only  an  intrusion. 
Why  can  they  not  leave  you  alone  with  your  great 
idea  ?  What  right  have  they  to  claim  a  share  of 
the  sunshine  in  which  you  are  sitting?  But  by- 
and-by  you  see  more  wisely.  You  begin  to  wonder 
whether  their  coming  on  this  side  of  you  is  not  the 
true  correlative  and  correspondent  of  the  coming  of 
the  vision  on  the  other  side  of  you.  You  begin  to 
feel  that  the  practical  life  may  be  needed  to  com- 
plete the  meditative  life.  If  you  open  the  door  to 
your  intrusive  fellow-men  you  find  that  it  indeed  is 
so.  Your  idea  of  God  falling  upon  the  many 
mirrors  of  their  various  needs  and  natures,  gains 
new  interpretations  and  illuminations.  Their  human 
hearts  get  hold  of  the  reality  of  God,  which  they 
never  could  have  found  out  for  themselves,  through 


Visions  and   Tasks. 


your  belief  in  it.  And  your  own  life,  open  on  both 
sides,  on  this  side  to  the  vision,  and  on  that  side  to 
the  men,  grows  rich  and  sacred  as  being  the  room 
in  which  that  most  deep  and  interesting  transaction 
which  the  world  can  witness,  the  meeting  of  truth 
with  the  human  mind,  takes  place. 

Truth  is  vague  and  helpless  until  men  believe  it. 
Men  are  weak  and  frivolous  till  they  believe  in 
truth.  To  furnish  truth  to  the  believing  heart,  and  to 
furnish  believing  hearts  to  truth,  certainly  there  is  no 
nobler  office  for  a  human  life  than  that  ;  and  the  doc- 
trine which  I  want  to  preach  to  you  to-day  is  that 
the  human  life  or  human  nature  is  so  made  as  to  ful- 
fil just  that  office.  How  can  we  better  tell  the  story 
of  you  who  first  believe  in  God  yourself  and  then  are 
drawn  out  to  make  your  fellow-men  believe  in  Him, 
and  in  making  them  believe  in  Him  find  your  own 
belief  grow  steadier  and  clearer — how  shall  we  better 
depict  this  human  life  which  never  learns  anything 
without  hearing  other  human  lives  clamoring  to 
share  the  blessings  of  its  knowledge  than  by  recurring 
to  the  story  of  Peter,  to  whom,  "as  he  thought  on  the 
vision,  the  Spirit  said,  Behold  three  men  seek  thee." 

It  is  illustrated,  this  central  and  critical  position 
in  which  a  man  may  stand,  by  the  way  in  which  the 
artist  stands  between  the  whole  world  of  beautiful 
ideas  and  the  hard  world  of  matter,  in  which  these 
ideas  at  last  find  their  expression  through  him.  The 
artist  dreams  his  dream,  and  as  he  thinks  upon  the 
vision,  the  Spirit  says,  Behold  the  marble  seeks  thee;" 
and  instantly  the  chisel  is  in  his  hand  and  the  work 


Visions  and  Tasks, 


of  carving  has  begun.  Ideas  would  hover  like  a  great 
vague  cloud  over  a  world  all  hard  and  gross  and 
meaningless,  if  it  were  not  for  man  who  brings  the 
fire  down  and  makes  the  whole  of  nature  significant 
and  vocal.  If  civilization  has  changed  the  face  of 
nature,  and  out  of  rocks  and  trees  built  monuments 
and  cities,  the  whole  long  history  is  but  the  record 
of  the  meeting  within  the  transmitting  intelligence 
of  man  of  the  abstract  idea  with  the  adaptable  ma- 
terial. 

But  to  return  from  our  illustration  to  our  truth. 
There  are  some  moments  in  life  when  this  position 
of  man,  as  standing  between  the  visions  which  he  bus 
seen  and  his  fellow-men  on  whom  he  is  to  bring  them 
into  power,  is  peculiarly  manifest.  There  are  perhaps 
some  young  men  here  to-day  who  stands  just  at  one  of 
those  moments  now.  When  any  process  of  education 
has  been  finished,  when  the  college  doors  have  just  dis- 
missed their  graduate,  when  the  professional  student 
stands  upon  the  brink  of  the  troubled  waters  of  his 
profession  with  the  calm  scholar-days  behind  him, 
when  the  young  minister  is  just  feeling  the  hands  of 
ordination  on  his  bowed  head,  in  all  these  days  how 
real  this  sense  of  the  two  worlds  between  which  he 
stands  is  to  any  truly  thoughtful  man.  Between  the 
silence  and  the  stir,  between  the  calm  accumulation 
and  the  active  employment  of  his  truth,  the  young 
man  stands  with  a  strange  consciousness  which  is 
never  so  vividly  repeated  at  any  other  moment  of 
his  life.  The  two  worlds,  one  on  each  side  of  him,  re- 
ceive illumination  from  each  other,  and  this  illumi- 


Visions  and   Tasks. 


nation  is  sent  hack  aud  forth  through  him.  Truth 
never  seemed  BO  sacred  as  when  he  comes  in  sight  of 
its  true  uses;  and  the  world  never  seemed  so  well 
worth  living  for  as  when  he  sees  how  much  it 
needs  his  truth.  Sad  is  the  lot,  sad  is  the  nature  of 
any  man  who  can  pass  through  such  a  moment  and 
not  be  solemnized  and  exalted  by  it.  Sad  is  the  man 
who  can  graduate  from  college  and  go  out  into 
the  world,  and  think  of  his  education  only  as  a 
drudgery  from  which  he  has  at  last  escaped,  or  as 
an  equipment  with  which  he  is  to  earn  his  daily 
bread. 

Sad  is  the  lot  and  nature  of  any  man  who  sees  his 
youth  fading  back  behind  him,  finds  himself  grow- 
ing out  of  the  specially  vision-seeing  period  of  life, 
and  counts  his  visions  as  they  fade,  mere  pleasant 
recollections,  or,  it  may  be,  things  to  laugh  at  and  to 
be  ashamed  of.  Sometimes  you  see  a  happy  man,  of 
whom,  as  he  grows  older,  nothing  of  that  kind  is  true. 
A  man  we  see  sometimes  who,  as  he  comes  to  mid- 
dle-life, finds  Iris  immediate  enthusiastic  sight  of 
ideal  things  grown  dull;  that  is  the  almost  neces- 
sary  condition  of  his  ripening  life.  He  does  not 
spring  as  quickly  as  he  once  did  to  seize  each  newly 
offered  hope  for  man.  A  thousand  disenchantment  s 
have  made  him  serious  and  sober.  He  looks  back, 
and  the  glow  and  sparkle  which  he  once  saw  in 
life  he  sees  no  longer.  He  wonders  at  his  recol- 
lection of  himself,  and  asks  how  it  is  possible  that 
life  ever  should  have  seemed  to  him  as  he  remem- 
bers that  it  did  seem.    But  the  fact  that  it  really  did 


Visions  and  Tasks. 


once  soem  so  to  him  is  his  most  valued  certainty. 
He  would  not  part  with  that  assurance  for  anything. 
All  the  hard  work  that  he  does  now  is  done  in  the 
strength  and  light  of  that  remembered  enthusiasm. 
To  have  been  born  into  the  world  as  he  is  now ;  never 
to  have  had  any  years  in  which  the  sky  seemed 
brighter  and  the  fields  greener,  and  man  more  noble, 
and  the  world  more  hopeful  than  they  seem  to-day, 
would  make  all  life  for  him  another  and  a  drearier 
thing.  Every  day  the  dreams  of  his  boyhood,  which 
seem  dead,  are  really  the  live  inspirations  of  his  life. 
To  such  a  man  there  surely  came,  some  day  or  other 
in  the  past,  a  Peter-hour,  a  time  at  which  the  visions 
of  his  youth  and  the  hard  work  of  his  manhood  met 
and  knew  each  other.  From  that  time  on  the 
power  of  his  vision  passed  into  his  work;  and  now, 
as,  with  his  calm,  dry  face,  seeming  so  unemotional, 
so  unmoved,  he  goes  about  his  labor,  doing  his  duty 
and  serving  his  generation,  it  is  really  the  fire  of  his 
youth  which  no  longer  blazes,  but  still  burns  within 
him  that  makes  the  active  power  of  that  dry,  prudent, 
conscientious,  useful  man.  Peter  plodding  over  the 
dusty  hills  to  reach  Cornelius,  may  seem  to  have  lost 
the  glory  which  was  on  his  face  while  he  sat  and 
thought  upon  the  vision,  and  caught  glimpses  of  the 
essential  nobleness  of  man — but  the  vision  was  at 
the  soul  of  his  journey  all  the  time,  and  was  what 
made  his  journey  different  from  that  of  any  peddler 
whom  he  met  upon  the  road. 

One  longs  to  speak  to  men  whom  the  hard  work 
and  dry  details  of  life  are  just  claiming,  as  they  are 


8  Visions  and  Tasks. 

leaving  their  youth  behind  and  passing  into  middle 
life.  You  may  expect  to  grow  less  enthusiastic  and 
excited.  Do  not  be  surprised  at  that.  But  in  the  meet- 
ing of  the  facts  of  life  with  those  accumulated  con- 
victions which  must  be  the  real  heart  of  any  true 
enthusiast,  you  ought  to  be  growing  more  and  more 
earnest  the  longer  that  you  live.  There  are  trees 
whose  fruit  does  not  ripen  till  their  leaves  have  fallen ; 
but  we  are  sure  that  the  ripe  fruit  does  not  laugh 
at  the  fallen  leaves  whose  strength  it  has  drawn  out 
into  its  own  perfected  shape  and  color.  If  you  do 
not  see  the  visions  which  you  saw  when  you  were  a 
boy,  that  does  not  prove  that  the  vision  was  not  true. 
That  boy's  belief  that  man  is  essentially  noble,  and 
the  world  is  full  of  hope,  is  as  genuinely  a  part  of  your 
total  life  as  this  man's  experience  that  men  will  cheat, 
and  that  the  world's  great  wheels  move  very  slowly. 
The  emotions  grow  less  eager  and  excited,  but  the 
convictions  ought  to  be  growing  always  stronger — 
as  the  kernel  ripens  in  the  withering  shell.  Believe 
in  man  with  all  your  childhood's  confidence,  while 
you  work  for  man  with  all  a  man's  prudence  and  cir- 
cumspection. Such  union  of  energy  and  wisdom 
makes  the  completest  character,  and  the  most  pow- 
erful life. 

I  have  been  wandering  a  little  from  my  subject. 
The  power  of  man  to  stand  between  abstract  truth 
upon  the  one  side  and  the  concrete  facts  of  life  upon 
the  other,  comes  from  the  co-existence  in  his  human 
nature  of  two  different  powers,  without  the  possession 
of  both  of  which  no  man  possesses  a  complete  hu- 


Visions  and  Tasks. 


inanity.  One  of  these  powers  is  the  power  of  knowing, 
and  the  other  is  the  power  of  loving.  I  ask  you  to 
give  to  both  of  the  words  their  fullest  meaning,  and 
then  how  rich  the  nature  grows  which  has  them 
both — this  human  nature,  which  is  not  truly  human 
if  either  of  them  be  left  out.  The  power  of  know- 
ing, however  the  knowledge  may  be  sought  or  won, 
whether  by  patient  study  or  quick-leaping  intuition, 
including  imagination  and  all  the  poetic  power,  faith, 
trust  in  authority,  the  faculty  of  getting  wisdom  by 
experience,  everything  by  which  the  human  nature 
comes  into  direct  relationship  to  truth,  and  tries  to 
learn,  and  in  any  degree,  succeeds  in  knowing — that  is 
one  necessary  element  of  manhood.  And  the  other  is 
Love,  the  power  of  sympathetic  intercourse  with  things 
and  people,  the  power  to  be  touched  by  the  personal 
nature  with  which  we  have  to  do — love  therefore, 
including  hate,  for  hate  is  only  the  reverse  utterance 
of  love,  the  negative  expression  of  the  soul's  affection ; 
to  hate  anything  is  vehemently  to  love  its  opposite. 
Love  thus,  as  the  whole  element  of  personal  affection 
and  relationship  of  every  sort,  this  too  is  necessary,  in 
order  that  a  man  may  really  be  a  man.  These  two 
together  must  be  in  all  men.  Not  merely  in  the 
greatest  men.  It  is  not  a  question  of  greatness,  but 
of  genuineness  and  completeness.  Just  as  the  same 
chemical  elements  must  be  in  a  raindrop  that  are  in 
Niagara,  and,  if  they  are,  then  the  raindrop  is  as  truly 
water  as  the  cataract ;  so  the  power  of  learning  truth 
and  the  power  of  loving  man  must  be  in  you  or  me, 
as  well  as  in  Shakspeare  or  Socrates ;  and  if  they  are, 


io  Visions  and  Tasks. 

then  we  are  as  genuinely  and  completely  men  as 
Socrates  and  Shakspeare. 

From  this  it  will  immediately  follow,  that  the  more 
perfectly  these  two  constituents  of  human  nature 
meet,  the  more  absolutely  they  are  proportioned  to 
each  other,  and  the  more  completely  they  are  blend- 
ed, so  much  the  more  ready  will  the  human  nature  be 
for  the  fulfilment  of  every  function  of  humanity. 
And  if,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  loftiest  functions 
of  humanity  is  to  stand  between  the  absolute  truth 
and  the  world's  needs,  and  to  transmit  the  one  in 
such  way  that  it  can  really  reach  and  help  the 
other,  then  it  will  also  follow  that  the  more  perfectly 
the  knowing  faculty  and  the  loving  faculty  meet  in 
any  man,  the  more  that  man's  life  will  become  a 
transmitter  and  interpreter  of  truth  to  other  men. 

That  sounds  like  a  dry  inference  ;  but  it  is  one 
of  which  our  own  dearest  experiences  have  borne  to 
all  of  us  most  precious  testimony.  If  you  look  back 
to  the  men  who  have  taught  you  most,  and  in  the 
fuller  light  where  you  now  stand,  study  their 
character,  you  will  surely  find  that  the  real  secret  of 
their  power  lay  here,  in  the  harmonious  blending  of 
the  knowing  and  the  loving  powers  in  their  nature  ; 
in  the  opening  of  their  nature  on  both  sides,  so  that 
truth  entered  in  freely  here  and  you  entered  in  freely 
there,  and  you  and  truth  met,  as  it  were,  familiarly 
in  the  hospitality  of  their  great  characters.  The 
man  who  has  only  the  knowing  power  active,  lets 
truth  in,  but  it  finds  no  man  to  feed.  The  man  who 
has  only  the  loving  power  active,  lets  man  in,  but  he 


Visions  and  Tasks.  u 

finds  no  truth  to  feed  on.     The  real  teacher  welcomes 
both. 

You  know  this  in  all  who  are  really  teachers.  It 
is  most  clear  of  all  in  that  highest  of  all  the  teacher- 
ships  which  the  world  has  to  show,  which  comes  with 
its  blessing  to  the  beginning  of  every  human  life 
which  is  not  by  special  misfortune  poorer  than  it 
ought  to  be.  Ask  where  a  mother's  power  lies,  and 
surely  the  answer  must  be  that  no  being  like  the  true 
mother  stands  between  visions  of  the  highest  truths 
on  one  side,  and  a  human  soul  on  the  other,  and  offers 
a  nature  in  which  the  knowing  power  and  the  lov- 
ing power  are  kneaded  and  moulded  together  into  a 
perfect  oneness,  into  a  sacred  and  pure  transparency 
for  the  transmission  of  the  first  facts  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  God  and  Life  to  the  intelligence  of 
her  child,  who  lives  in  her  knowledge  by  her  love. 
The  purest  mingling  of  all  elements  into  one  char- 
acter and  nature  which  we  can  ever  see,  is  in  the 
Christian  mother,  in  whom  the  knowledge  of  all 
that  she  knows  and  the  love  which  she  feels  for 
her  child,  make  not  two  natures,  as  they  often  do  in 
men,  in  fathers,  but  perfectly  and  absolutely  one. 
She  values  knowledge  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for 
her  child.  She  loves  him  not  with  the  mere  animal 
fondness  with  which  the  brute  mother  loves  her 
child,  but  as  the  utterance  and  revelation  of  every 
truth  to  her.  Thus  her  love  and  her  intelligence 
are  blended  perfectly ;  and  the  result  is  that  which 
we  know,  the  wonderful  power  of  the  mother's  life 
to  bring  the  deepest,  highest,  farthest  truths,  and 


12  Visions  and  Tasks. 

win  for  them  their  first  entrance  into  the  nature  of 
her  child. 

The  New  Testament  tells  us  of  Jesus  that  He  was 
full  of  Grace  and  Truth.  Grace  and  Truth  !  These  are 
exactly  the  two  elements  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking,  and  it  must  have  been  in  the  perfect  meet- 
ing of  those  two  elements  in  him  that  His  mediator- 
ship,  His  power  to  transmute  the  everlasting  truths  of 
God  into  the  immediate  help  of  needy  men  consisted. 
He  was  no  rapt  self-centered  student  of  the  abstract 
truth;  nor  was  he  the  merely  ready  sentimental 
pitier  of  the  woes  of  men.  But  in  His  whole  nature 
there  was  finely  wrought  and  combined  the  union 
of  the  abstract  and  eternal  with  the  special  and  the 
personal,  which  made  it  possible  for  him,  without  an 
effort,  to  come  down  from  the  mountain  where  he  had 
been  glorified  with  the  light  of  God,  and  take  up  in- 
stantly the  cure  of  the  poor  lunatic  in  the  valley ;  or 
to  descend  from  the  hill  where  he  had  been  praying, 
to  save  his  disciples  half-shipwrecked  on  the  lake ; 
or  to  turn  his  back  on  the  comforting  angels  of  Geth- 
semane,  that  he  might  give  himself  into  the  hands 
of  the  soldiers  who  were  to  lead  him  to  the  cross. 
"While  he  thought  upon  the  vision,  the  Spirit  said 
unto  him,  Behold  three  men  seek  thee."  Can  any 
words  more  typically  tell  the  life  of  Christ  than 
those ! 

It  is  a  truth  which  we  have  all  learned  from  some 
experience  through  which  we  have  been  led,  that  any 
great  experience,  seriously  and  greatly  met  and 
passed   through,    makes   the   man    who  has  passed 


Visions  and  Tasks.  13 


through  it  always  afterwards  a  purer  medium 
through  which  the  highest  truth  may  shine  on  other 
men.  Have  you  not  seen  it  ?  Here  is  some  man 
whom  you  have  known  long.  You  have  seemed  to 
have  reached  the  end  of  all  that  it  is  possible  for  you 
to  get  from  him,  all  that  it  is  possible  for  him  to  do 
for  you.  Nothing  has  come  through  him  from  behind 
to  you.  You  have  seen  him.  You  have  seen  a  sort 
of  glint  or  glimmer  of  reflection  of  God's  light 
upon  the  surface  of  His  life,  as  the  sun  might  be  re- 
flected on  a  plate  of  steel.  But  nothing  of  God  or 
God's  truth  has  come  through  him  to  you  as  the  sun 
shines  through  a  lens  of  glass,  pouring  its  increased 
intensity  upon  the  wood  it  sets  in  flame. 

But  some  day  you  meet  that  man,  and  he  is  altered. 
Tenderer,  warmer,  richer,  he  seems  to  be  full  of 
truths  and  revelations  which  he  easily  pours  out  to 
you.  Now  you  not  merely  see  him ;  you  see  through 
him  to  things  behind.  As  you  talk  with  him,  as  you 
look  into  his  face,  you  see  with  new  surprising  clear- 
ness what  God  is,  what  man  is,  what  a  great  thing  it 
is  to  live,  what  a  great  thing  it  is  to  die,  how  mysteri- 
ous and  pathetic  are  sorrow  and  happiness,  and  fear 
and  hope.  You  cannot  begin  to  tell  the  change  by 
merely  thinking  that  the  man  has  learned  some  new 
facts  and  is  telling  them  to  you,  as  a  book  might 
tell  them  from  its  printed  page.  The  very  substance 
of  the  man  is  altered,  so  that  he  stands  between  the 
eternal  truths  and  you  no  longer  as  a  screen,  which 
shuts  them  from  your  sight,  but  as  an  atmosphere 
through  which  they  come  to  you  all  radiant.     You 


14  Visions  and  Tasks. 

ask  what  has  come  to  him,  and  you  hear  (if  you 
are  near  enough  for  him  to  tell  you  his  most  sacred 
history),  of  some  profound  experience.  He  has 
passed  through  an  overwhelming  sorrow.  He  has 
stood  upon  the  brink  of  some  tremendous  danger. 
He  has  spent  a  day  and  a  night  in  the  deep  of  some 
bewildering  doubt.  He  has  been  overmastered  by 
some  sudden  joy.  It  may  have  been  one  of  these  or 
another.  The  result  has  been  in  such  a  change  of 
the  very  substance  of  the  nature,  that,  whereas  before 
it  was  all  thick  and  muddy,  so  that  whatever  light 
fell  upon  it  was  either  cast  aside  or  else  absorbed  into 
it  and  lost,  now  it  makes  truth  first  visible,  and 
then  clear  and  convincing  to  the  fellow-men  who  see 
truth  through  it. 

And  when  you  try  to  analyze  this  change,  do  you 
not  find  that  it  consists  in  an  impregnation  of  the 
nature  which  has  had  this  new  experience  with  two 
forces — one  a  love  for  truth,  the  other  a  love  for 
man  ?  and  it  is  in  the  perfect  combination  of  these 
two  in  any  life  that  the  clarifying  of  that  life  into  a 
power  of  transmission  and  irradiation  truly  lies. 
What  man  goes  worthily  through  sorrow  and  does 
not  come  out  hating  shams  and  pretences,  hunger- 
ing for  truth ;  and  also  full  of  sympathy  for  his  fel- 
low-man whose  capacity  for  suffering  has  been  re- 
vealed to  him  by  his  own.  It  is  the  perfect  blend- 
ing of  those  two  constituents  in  the  new  nature 
of  your  tried  and  patient  friend  which  have  given 
him  this  wondrous  power  of  showing  God  and  truth 
to  you. 


Visions  and  Tasks.  15 

What  man  goes  bravely  and  faithfully  through 
doubt  and  does  not  bring  out  a  soul  to  which  truth 
seems  to  be  infinitely  precious,  and  the  human  soul 
the  most  mysterious,  sacred  thing  in  all  the  world. 
Out  of  the  union  of  those  two  persuasions  has  come 
the  prophetship  of  this  life  which  now  you  cannot 
look  at  without  seeing  the  infinite  behind  it  made 
clear  by  it. 

Surely,  if  we  can  believe  this,  then  the  way  in 
which  God  lets  his  children  encounter  great,  and 
sometimes  terrible,  experiences  is  not  entirely  inex- 
plicable. Surely  if  these  souls  which  now  are  deep 
in  sorrow,  or  are  being  cast  up  and  down  and  back  and 
forth  in  doubt,  are  being  thus  annealed  and  purified 
that  they  may  come  to  be  revealers,  mediators  be- 
tween God  and  their  fellow-men,  then  into  our 
wonder  at  the  existence  of  doubt  and  sorrow  in  God's 
world  there  comes  a  little  ray  of  light.  Who  would 
not  bear  anything  that  could  refine  his  life  into  fitness 
for  such  a  privilege  as  that  ? 

I  had  meant  to  speak  of  several  of  the  special  vis- 
ions which,  through  the  soul  that  is  prepared  for 
such  an  office,  become  transformed  into  influence  and 
blessing  to  mankind.  I  can  only  indicate  them  in 
the  slightest  way.  Suppose  that  God  has  let  you  see 
His  goodness.  A  strong,  unalterable  persuasion  that 
God  is  merciful  and  kind  has  been  poured  onto  your 
life,  into  your  mind.  That  fact  itself,  once  known, 
absorbs  your  contemplation.  If  you  and  God  were 
all  the  universe,  the  knowledge  of  His  goodness 
would  be  everything  to  you.     You  would  sit  lonely 


1 6  Visions  and  Tasks. 

in  the  empty  world  and  fill  your  soul  with  gazing  on 
the  brightness  of  that  truth.  So  you  do  sit  to-day, 
as  if  you  and  God  were  indeed  alone,  and  no  one  in 
the  universe  except  you  two.  And  then,  as  you  sit 
so,  there  comes  some  sort  of  appeal  from  fellow-men. 
The  three  men  are  down  at  the  door  while  you  are 
dreaming  on  the  housetop.  Your  child  comes  to 
you  with  some  childish  joy  and  wants  its  explanation ; 
some  puzzled  neighbor  cries  across  to  you,  from  his 
life  to  yours,  and  wants  to  know  if  you  have  any 
clue  to  all  this  snarl  of  living.  Somehow  the  cry 
awakens  you,  and  you  go  down  and  put  your  truth 
into  your  brother's  hands.  At  first  it  seems  almost 
a  profanation.  The  truth  is  so  sacred  and  seems  so 
thoroughly  your  own.  But  as  you  give  it  to  your 
brother,  new  lights  come  out  in  it.  For  God  to  be 
good  means  something  more  when  the  goodness 
turns  to  new  forms  of  blessing  in  the  new  need  of 
this  new  life.  O  you  who  think  you  know  that  God 
is  merciful  because  of  the  mercy  which  He  has 
shewed  to  you,  be  sure  there  is  a  richness  in  your 
truth  which  you  have  not  reached  yet,  which  you 
will  never  reach  until  you  let  Him  make  your  life  the 
interpreter  of  His  goodness  to  some  other  soul ! 

Or  again  perhaps  the  truth  which  you  have  learned, 
the  vision  which  you  have  seen,  is  the  sinfulness  of 
sin — what  a  terrible  thing  it  is  for  any  child  of  God 
to  disobey  his  Father.  Overwhelmed  with  that 
knowledge,  you  sit  and  brood  upon  your  sad  estate. 
I  think  that  all  religious  history  bears  witness  that 
that  conviction,  if  it  remains  purely  a  personal  truth 


Visions  and  Tasks.  17 

of  our  own  life,  certainly  grows  tyrannical  and  mor- 
bid and  brings  despair.  As  soon  as  it  becomes  a 
stimulus,  inspiring  us  to  go  and  help  our  brethren  es- 
cape out  of  their  sin,  it  becomes  salutary  and  blessed. 
If  I  knew  any  soul  to-day,  haggard  and  weary  with 
its  consciousness  of  sin  and  danger,  I  think  that 
what  I  would  try  to  do  to  help  it  would  be  this — make 
it  see  in  its  own  sinfulness  the  revelation  of  the  sin- 
fulness of  all  the  world;  then  let  it  forget  its  own  sin- 
fulness and  keep  only  the  impulse  that  must  come 
out  of  its  sight  of  how  horrible  the  world's  sin  is; 
then  let  it  go,  full  of  that  impulse,  and  try  to  save  the 
world.     So  it  must  find  its  own  salvation. 

So  of  the  truth  of  immortality.  Not  as  a  per- 
sonal privilege  of  mine,  but  as  a  token  of  the  great- 
ness and  worth  of  the  human  soul,  making  every 
service  which  I  can  render  to  it  more  imperious  and 
delightful — so  do  I  come  to  understand  the  fact  that 
man  never  dies  with  the  fullest  faith. 

So  of  such  a  truth  as  the  Trinity.  Not  as  a  puz- 
zle or  a  satisfaction  of  the  intellect,  but  as  an  ex- 
pression of  the  manifold  helpfulness  with  which  the 
divine  nature  offers  itself  to  the  human,  so  it  will 
be  to  me  the  richest  and  the  holiest  creed. 

There  are  no  limits  to  our  doctrine.  Every  truth 
which  it  is  possible  for  man  to  know  it  is  good  for 
him  to  know  with  reference  to  his  brother  men. 
Only  in  that  way  is  the  truth  which  he  knows  kept 
at  its  loftiest  and  purest.  This  is  the  daily  meaning 
which  I  want  to  find  in  the  picture  of  Peter  sitting 


Visions  and  Tasks. 


before  his  vision,  on  the  house-top  and  the  three  men 
knocking  in  the  street  below. 

There  is  a  danger,  which  we  all  recognize,  of  self- 
ishness in  our  religion.  It  comes  in  various  forms. 
It  makes  one  man  say :  "  I  am  content,  for  I  have 
seen  the  Lord."  To  that  man  the  great  host  of  his 
fellow-men  who  need  his  Lord  as  much  as  he,  are 
nothing.  He  will  leave  them  unheard  in  the  street 
and  sit  within,  wrapped  in  the  complacency  of  his 
assured  salvation.  Another  man  says,  ' '  What  busi- 
ness is  it  of  any  one  except  myself  if  I  close  my  eyes 
and  do  not  see  the  Lord  ?  Does  it  hurt  any  one  but 
me  ?  Who  has  a  right  to  interfere  or  urge  me  ?"  To 
both  of  these  men  is  there  not  a  message  in  the  story 
of  Peter  which  we  have  been  studying  this  morning? 
To  the  first  man  it  says:  The  seeing  of  your  own 
vision  is  but  half,  and  half  without  the  other  half 
grows  weak  and  perishes.  Your  religion,  kept  sole- 
ly for  yourself,  will  certainly  decay.  Up,  up,  and  go 
abroad  and  find  the  men  who  need  your  Christ,  to 
whom  you  can  bring  Him,  in  giving  Him  to  whom 
alone  you  can  make  your  own  faith  in  Him  complete 
and  strong. 

To  the  other  man  it  says,  Indeed  it  is  the  business 
of  other  men  than  you,  it  is  the  whole  world's  busi- 
ness whether  or  not  you  are  a  Christian  !  Indeed  it 
does  rob  other  souls  than  yours,  if  you  will  not  live 
spiritually  and  see  the  truth  which  God  is  showing 
to  your  soul.  If  there  are  men  whom,  being  your- 
self a  Christian,  you  might  bring  to  Christ,  then  you 
rob  not  only  yourself  but  them,  if  you  refuse  to  come 


Visions  and  Tasks.  19 


to  Christ.  The  window  which  makes  itself  dark, 
darkens  not  merely  itself,  but  also  all  the  room  into 
which  the  light  might  have  shone  through  it. 

I  dare  to  hope  that  some  generous  nature  may  feel 
this  appeal.  Be  spiritual,  be  religious,  come  to  Christ. 
Cast  off  your  sins,  not  for  yourself,  but  for  some  soul 
which  possibly  may  learn  from  you,  what  it  could 
not  learn  in  any  other  way,  how  good  and  strong 
and  forgiving  is  the  sinner's  God. 

It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  have  seen  the  vision,  and 
to  be  so  wrapped  up  in  its  contemplation  as  not  to 
hear  the  knock  of  needy  hands  upon  our  doors. 

It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  hear  the  knock  and  have 
no  vision  to  declare  to  the  poor  knocker. 

But  there  is  no  greater  happiness  in  all  the  world 
than  for  a  man  to  love  Christ  for  the  mercy  Christ 
has  shown  his  soul,  and  then  to  open  his  whole 
heart  outward  and  help  to  save  his  brethren's  souls 
with  the  same  salvation  in  which  he  rejoices  for 
himself.  May  none  of  us  go  through  life  so  poor  as 
never  to  have  known  that  happiness. 


SERMON  II. 

m  &tftef$  Wmfttv. 

u  Son,  why  hast  thou  thus  dealt  with  us  ?  " — Luke  ii.  48. 

THE  mother  of  Jesus  is  the  speaker,  and  it  is  of 
Jesus  that  she  asks  her  question.  On  the  way 
home  from  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  where  they  had 
gone  to  worship,  you  remember,  they  missed  the  child 
Jesus  from  their  company.  On  going  back  they  found 
him  in  the  temple,  "  sitting  in  the  midst  of  the  doc- 
tors, both  hearing  them  and  asking  them  questions." 
Then  it  was  that  His  mother  said  unto  him,  ;'  Son, 
why  hast  thou  thus  dealt  with  us  ?  Behold  thy  fa- 
ther and  I  have  sought  thee  sorrowing.  And  he 
said  unto  them,  How  is  it  that  ye  sought  me  ?  wist 
ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my  father's  business  ?" 

"Why  hast  thou  dealt  thus  with  us?"  It  is  a  puzzled 
question.  The  boy,  who  had  been  an  obedient  child  in 
her  household,  whom  she  had  cared  for  in  her  own 
way  and  found  always  docile  to  her  guidance,  had 
suddenly  past  beyond  her  and  done  a  thing  which 
she  could  not  understand.  It  seemed  as  if  she  had 
lost  him.  Her  tone  is  full  of  love,  but  there  is  some- 
thing almost  like  jealousy  about  it.  He  has  taken 
20 


The  Mother  s  Wonder.  21 

himself  into  his  own  keeping,  and  this  one  act  seems 
to  foretell  the  time  when  he  will  take  his  whole  life 
into  his  own  hands,  and  leave  her  outside  altogether. 
The  time  has  past  when  she  could  hold  him  as  a  babe 
upon  her  bosom  as  she  carried  him  down  into  Egypt. 
The  time  is  prophesied  already  when  he  should  go  in 
his  solitude  up  to  the  cross,  and  only  leave  his 
mother  weeping  at  the  foot.  She  is  bidden  to  stand 
by  and  see  her  Son  do  his  work  and  live  his  life, 
which  thus  far  has  been  all  of  her  shaping,  in  ways 
she  cannot  understand.  No  wonder  that  it  is  a  clear, 
critical  moment  in  her  life.  No  wonder  that  her 
question  still  rings  with  the  pain  that  she  put  into  it. 
No  wonder  that  when  she  went  home,  although  he 
was  still  "  subject  unto  her,"  her  life  with  her  son 
was  all  changed,  and  she  "  kept  all  these  sayings 
in  her  heart." 

I  think  that  this  question  of  the  mother  of  Jesus 
reveals  an  experience  of  the  human  heart  which  is 
very  common,  which  is  most  common  in  the  best 
hearts  and  those  who  feel  their  responsibility  the  most. 
It  is  an  experience  which  well  deserves  our  study,  and 
I  ask  you  this  morning  to  think  about  it  with  me  in 
some  of  its  examples.  The  Virgin  Mary  is  the  per- 
petual type  of  people  who,  intrusted  with  any  great 
and  sacred  interest,  identify  their  own  lives  with 
that  interest  and  care  for  it  conscientiously;  but  who, 
by-and-by,  when  the  interest  begins  to  manifest  its  own 
vitality  and  to  shape  its  own  methods,  are  filled  with 
perplexity.  They  cannot  keep  the  causes  for  which 
they    labor   under  their  own  care.     As  his    mothel 


22  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

asked  of  Jesus,  so  they  are  always  asking  of  the  objects 
for  which  they  live,  "  Why  hast  thou  thus  dealt  with 
us?"  Such  people  are  people  who  have  realized 
responsibility  more  than  they  have  realized  God. 
Just  as  Mary  felt  at  the  moment  when  she  asked  this 
question,  that  Jesus  was  her  son  more  than  that  he 
was  God's  Son,  so  there  is  a  constant  tendency  among 
the  most  earnest  and  conscientious  people,  to  feel  that 
the  causes  for  which  they  live  and  work  are  their 
causes,  more  than  that  they  are  God's  causes,  and  so 
to  experience  something  which  is  almost  like  jealousy, 
when  they  see  those  causes  pass  beyond  their  power 
and  fulfil  themselves  in  larger  ways  than  theirs. 
For  such  people,  often  the  most  devoted  and  faithful 
souls  among  us,  it  seems  to  me  that  there  must  be 
some  help  and  light  in  this  story  of  Jesus  and  his 
mother. 

The  first  and  simplest  case  of  the  experience  which 
I  want  to  speak  of,  is  that  which  comes  nearest  to 
the  circumstances  of  our  story.  It  comes  in  every 
childhood.  It  comes  whenever  a  boy  grows  up  to  the 
time  at  which  he  passes  beyond  the  merely  parental 
government  which  belonged  to  his  earliest  years. 
It  comes  with  all  assertion  of  individual  character 
and  purpose  in  a  boy's  life.  A  boy  has  had  his  career 
all  identified  with  his  home  where  he  was  cradled. 
What  he  was  and  did,  he  was  and  did  as  a  member 
of  that  household.  But  by-and-by  there  comes  some 
sudden  outbreak  of  a  personal  energy.  He  shows 
some  disposition,  and  attempts  some  task  distinctive- 
ly his  own.     It  is  a  puzzling  moment  alike  for  the 


The  Mother's  Wonder.  23 

child  and  for  the  father.  The  child  is  perplexed  with 
pleasure  which  is  almost  pain  to  find  himself  for 
the  first  time  doing  an  act  which  is  genuinely  his 
own.  The  father  is  filled  with  a  pain  which  yet 
has  pride  and  pleasure  in  it  to  see  his  boy  doing 
something  original,  something  which  he  never  bade 
him  do,  something  which  perhaps  he  could  not  do 
himself.  The  real  understanding  of  that  moment, 
both  to  child  and  father,  depends  upon  one  thing — 
upon  whether  they  can  see  in  it  the  larger  truth  that 
this  child  is  not  merely  the  son  of  his  father,  but 
also  is  the  son  of  God.  If  they  both  understand 
that,  then  the  child,  as  he  undertakes  his  personal 
life,  passes  not  into  a  looser,  but  into  a  stronger, 
responsibility.  And  the  father  is  satisfied  to  see  his 
first  authority  over  his  son  grow  less,  because  he 
cannot  be  jealous  of  God.  It  is  a  noble  progress  and 
expansion  of  life,  when  the  first  independent  venture 
of  a  young  man  on  a  career  of  his  own,  is  not  the 
wilful  claim  of  the  prodigal:  "  Give  me  the  portion 
of  goods  that  falleth  to  me," — but  the  reverent  appeal 
of  Jesus  :  "  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my 
Father's  business  ?" 

Let  this  serve  for  an  illustration.  It  is  the  scene 
which,  recurring  in  every  household,  as  a  boy  claims 
his  own  life,  is  constantly  repeating  the  experience 
of  the  household  of  Nazareth.  And  now  all  respon- 
sible life,  all  life  entrusted  with  the  care  of  any  of 
God's  causes,  has  this  same  sort  of  correspondence 
with  the  life  of  the  mother  of  Jesus.  There  can  be 
no  higher  specimen  of  responsibility  than  she  ex- 


24  The  Mothers  Wonder. 

hibits.  She  is  entrusted  with  the  care  of  Him  who  is 
to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  And  that  responsi- 
bility she  accepts  entirely.  She  is  willing  to  give  up 
everything  else  in  life,  to  be  absorbed  and  worn  out 
in  the  task  of  supreme  privilege  which  God  has 
given  her.  There  comes  no  trouble  or  lack  in  the 
degree  of  her  readiness  for  labor  or  for  pain.  But 
the  quality  of  her  self-sacrifice  shows  its  defect  else- 
where. She  is  not  able  to  see  where  the  limits  of  her 
work  must  be.  She  is  not  able  to  stop  short  in  her 
devout  responsibility,  when  the  task  passes  beyond 
her  power,  and  her  son  begins  to  deal  directly  with 
his  Father. 

Compare  with  her,  in  the  first  place,  that  person 
with  whom  we  are  familiar  in  all  the  history  of 
Christianity,  whom  we  see  about  us  constantly — the 
champion  of  the  Faith,  the  man  who  counts  it  his 
work  in  life  to  maintain  and  protect  the  purity  of  the 
belief  in  Christ.  It  is  a  noble  task  for  a  man  to  ac- 
cept. It  is  filled  with  anxiety.  The  faith  for  which 
the  man  cares  is  beset  with  many  dangers.  It  costs 
him  sleepless  nights  and  weary  days.  He  incurs 
dislike;  he  excites  hostility  by  his  eager  zeal.  To 
all  this  he  is  fully  equal.  The  danger  of  many  a 
stout  champion  of  truth  comes  quite  at  the  other  end. 
There  comes  a  time  when  God,  as  it  were,  takes  back 
into  His  own  keeping  that  faith  over  which  He  has 
bidden  His  disciples  to  stand  guard.  The  truth  begins 
to  show  a  vitality  upon  which  the  believer  has  not 
counted.  It  puts  itself  into  new  forms.  It  develops 
new  associations.    No  wonder  that  he  is  troubled.    No 


The  Mothers  Wo7ider.  25 

wonder  that,  unless  he  is  a  large  and  thoughtful  man, 
thoroughly  reverent  of  truth  as  well  as  thoroughly 
devoted  to  the  truths  which  he  has  held,  he  grudges 
truth  in  some  way  the  larger  freedom  which  it  is 
claiming  for  itself,  and  almost  opposes  its  develop- 
ment. 

Take  an  example.  A  good  man  has  for  years  count- 
ed himself  a  champion  of  the  often  denied  and  insult- 
ed justice  of  God.  He  has  been  ready  to  maintain 
it  everywhere.  Against  all  weak  representations  of 
God  as  a  being  all  indulgence,  he  has  asserted  that 
God  must  punish  wickedness.  That  truth  he  has 
supported,  as  he  has  conceived  it,  in  its  simplest, 
crudest  form — physical,  unending  punishment.  Sup- 
pose the  day  comes  when  that  faith  claims  for  itself 
a  free  and  more  spiritual  meaning ;  when  men's  souls 
become  aware  that  in  the  world  to  come,  as  in  this 
world,  the  punishment  of  sin  must  be  bound  up  in 
sin  itself  ;  when  not  the  agonies  of  hell,  but  the  de- 
gradation of  the  moral  nature,  stands  out  as  the 
dreadful  thing.  No  wonder  that  at  first,  the  surprised 
believer  is  almost  dismayed.  His  faith,  over  which 
he  has  stood  guard  so  faithfully,  seems  to  be  slipping 
away  from  him.  His  faith  seems  to  be  playing  him 
false.  He  is  bewildered,  as  Mary  was  when  Jesus  for 
the  first  time  began  to  show  his  personal  will  and 
ways.  But  by-and-by  the  time  came  when  she  rejoiced 
in  it,  no  doubt.  "  Whatsoever  he  saith  unto  you,  do  it," 
she  ordered  the  servants  at  the  marriage  in  Cana. 
By  that  time  she  had  learned  to  trust  her  Son  far  out 
of  her  own  sight,  to  look  to  his  own    self-develop- 


26  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

ment  with  perfect  confidence.  And  so  the  believer, 
and  the  champion  of  belief,  comes  in  the  course  of  time 
to  rejoice  when  his  belief  outgrows  him ;  when  what 
he  has  to  stand  guard  over  is  seen  to  be,  not  the  spe- 
cial form  in  which  a  dogma  has  been  conceived,  but 
the  spirit  to  which  knowledge  can  come,  and  to 
which  it  must  come  always  more  spiritually  and 
richly;  not  the  truth,  but  truthfulness. 

It  does  seem  to  me  that  this  is  what  many  a  be- 
liever needs  to  learn  to-day.  His  faith  seems  to  be 
slipping  away  from  him.  Truths  will  not  remain 
the  definite  and  docile  things  they  used  to  be.  His 
doctrine  opens  into  some  deeper  form.  He  turns  to 
the  doctrine  he  has  held  and  says  to  it,  "  Why  have 
you  dealt  thus  with  me  ?"  "  Why  will  you  leave  me  ?" 
And  the  answer  is,  "I  must  be  about  my  Father's 
business."  Truth  is  God's  child.  Truth  must  be  what 
God  wills,  not  what  the  believer  wills.  It  is  a  bless- 
ed day  for  the  believer  when  he  learns  this,  and 
thenceforth  only  waits  to  see  what  new  forms  God 
will  give  his  faith  from  year  to  year,  and  then  is  ready 
to  follow  it  into  whatever  new  regions  God  will 
send  it  forth  to  seek. 

And  this  same  truth  applies  to  the  care  for  the 
world's  reformation  and  improvement,  which  differ- 
ent kinds  of  good  men  have.  There  are  some  men 
undertaking  to  reform  the  world  who  want  to  keep 
the  whole  plan  in  their  own  hands  and  never  have 
its  working  outgo  their  wisdom.  There  are  other 
reformers  who  believe  themselves  to  be  working  in 
a  great  system  which  is  far  too  large  for  them  to 


The  Mothers  Wonder.  27 

comj  rehend,  to  which  they  can  only  give  a  helping 
touch  at  one  point  where  it  comes  near  their  lives. 
The  first  kind  of  reformer  believes  that  he  under- 
stands it  all,  knows  just  how  evil  is  to  be  eradicated, 
just  how  good  is  to  be  aroused  and  the  world  saved. 
The  other  reformer  does  not  profess  to  know  any- 
thing except  that  God  is  over  all  and  that  under 
God  he  has  the  privilege  of  helping  this  cause  or 
that  cause  of  righteousness  in  some  special  time  of 
need,  and  at  some  special  point  which  he  can 
touch.  The  first  is  the  reformer  with  a  theory. 
The  second  is  a  reformer  with  a  devotion. 

And  it  is  evident  what  will  be  the  different  effect 
on  these  two  men,  if,  as  so  often  happens,  the  pro- 
gress of  humanity  seems  to  declare  a  will  of  its  own, 
does  not  advance  as  we  expected  it  to  advance,  lags 
where  we  look  for  it  to  hasten,  or  leaps  to  some  great 
attainment  where  we  expected  it  to  proceed  by  slow 
degrees.  The  theoretical  reformer,  who  thinks  him- 
self a  master  of  human  progress,  and  has  imagined 
that  he  understood  it  all,  is  entirely  lost  as  he  sees  the 
reform  which  he  has  thought  could  only  come  to  pass 
in  one  way,  attaining  its  accomplishment  in  another, 
and  going  on  its  way  far  off  in  some  new  direction, 
leaving  him  behind.  The  devout  reformer,  who  has 
considered  himself  the  servant  of  human  good,  is 
glad  enough  to  see  that  human  good  is  far  larger 
than  he  can  understand,  and  is  content  if  he  can  lend 
his  little  skill  to  some  corner  of  its  many  wants,  and 
be  carried  on  with  it,  working  for  it,  to  unknown 
results. 


28  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

There  are  always  people  who  are  uneasy  if  hard 
times  improve  by  other  ways  than  they  suggested. 
There  are  men  enough  in  our  land  to-day  who  cannot 
be  totally  glad  that  slavery  is  abolished,  because  its 
abolition  did  not  come  about  by  their  plan.  There 
are  men  in  the  Church  who  begrudge  the  work  she 
does,  if  it  is  not  done  by  their  own  school  of  church- 
men. What  is  the  trouble  with  all  these  people  ?  Is 
it  not  simple  enough  ?  They  have  the  care  of  some 
one  of  God's  children,  some  one  of  the  causes  which 
are  born  of  Him,  and  which  He  loves,  but  they  treat 
it  as  if  it  were  not  God's  child,  but  only  theirs.  They 
are  afraid  if  they  see  it  growing  strong  in  ways 
which  they  do  not  understand.  When  it  dawns  upon 
such  a  man  that  behind  all  the  care  which  he  has 
for  any  of  the  great  interests  of  righteousness  and 
the  use  which  God  is  making  of  him  in  its  behalf, 
God  himself  is  holding  that  interest  in  the  hollow  of 
His  hand,  and  with  His  infinite  wisdom  is  preparing 
for  it  ways  of  success  which  His  servant  cannot 
begin  to  know,  how  calm  and  confident  the  servant's 
care  for  that  good  work  must  grow ;  how  ready  he  must 
be  to  see  the  methods  of  the  reform  which  he  desires 
change  utterly  before  his  eyes,  to  see  it  taken  utterly 
out  of  his  hands  and  yet  work  on  for  it  with  all  his! 
might  and  soul.  Here  is  the  salvation  of  honest 
partisanship.  You  believe  that  only  your  political 
party  can  save  the  country.  But  if  you  believe  that 
the  salvation  of  the  country  is  a  care  of  God,  you  will 
stand  ever  ready  to  help  whatever  new  party  God 
may  seem  to  entrust  with  one  period  of  that  ever  im< 


The  Mothers  Wonder.  29 


finished  work.  You  and  I  believe  that  our  Church 
has  a  great  work  to  do  for  Christ's  Gospel  in  our 
country,  but  if  we  believe  that  Christ's  gospel  is 
something  which  is  very  near  to  the  heart  of  God, 
we  cannot  possibly  limit  our  sympathy  to  what  our 
Church  is  doing.  Even  if  our  Church  fails  of  its  duty, 
we  cannot  possibly  feel  as  if  the  gospel  had  failed. 
We  shall  have  to  rejoice,  even  while  we  work  on  with 
her,  that  God  has  other  ways  to  do  the  work  in  which 
she  does  her  part  so  feebly. 

These  cases  are  no  doubt  too  general ;  they  do 
not  touch  us  very  closely.  Let  us  try  to  come 
nearer  home.  I  think  that  the  same  principle  ap- 
plies to  every  work  which  any  one  of  us  tries  to  do 
for  any  of  his  brethren.  I  know  that  in  this  con- 
gregation there  must  be  many  who  are  anxious  for 
the  life  of  some  one  whom  they  love.  A  certain  re- 
sponsibility lies  upon  you  for  some  brother's  life. 
Somebody  seems  to  have  been  given  to  you  to  care 
for.  You  did  not  seek  the  care.  But  here  is  some 
one  who,  because  there  is  no  one  else  to  care  for  him 
and  see  that  he  goes  right,  has  grown  to  be  your  care. 
That  responsibility  is  no  light  one,  you  well  know. 
It  presses  on  you.  You  are  anxious  under  it.  Can 
our  story  help  you?  Surely  it  can.  You  say,  "How? 
Is  there  not  an  un  likeness  at  the  very  outset  of  the 
story?  Was  not  this  one  over  whom  the  Virgin  Mary 
watched,  the  Son  of  God  ?  "  But  tell  me :  is  not  the 
man  whom  you  are  anxious  for,  the  brother  who  is 
in  the  midst  of  his  temptation,  the  friend  who  is 
out  of  work  and  growing  idle,  the  beggar  whom  you 


30  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

are  trying  to  reform  out  of  his  drunkenness,  is  not 
each  of  these  too  a  son  of  God  ?  And  is  it  not  true, 
and  must  it  not  enter  into  the  very  centre  of  your 
care  for  them,  that  they  are  under  God's  care  just  as 
truly  as  they  are  under  your  care;  and  that,  while 
God  uses  you  for  their  development,  it  is  perfectly 
possible,  it  is  every  way  to  be  expected,  that  He  will 
develop  them  by  means  and  in  directions  of  which 
you  never  would  have  dreamed  ? 

I  think  that  it  is  hopeless  for  any  man  to  under- 
take to  render  high  help  to  another  man's  life  who 
is  not  constantly  aware  of  this.  Mary  learned  two 
things  about  her  Son  that  day  in  the  temple,  things 
which  she  had  known  before,  but  which  became  per- 
fectly and  permanently  clear  to  her  there.  One  was, 
that  his  life  was  mysteriously  larger  than  her  own. 
The  other  was,  that  God  was  over  and  behind  her, 
caring  for  that  life  for  which  she  had  been  caring. 
The  largeness  and  mystery  of  her  Son's  life  and  the 
fatherhood  of  God  to  him,  those  two  things  she 
learned  there,  and  thenceforth  they  were  part  of  her 
life  always.  She  never  can  have  forgotten  them 
again.  They  must  have  made  all  the  future  service 
that  she  rendered  to  him  at  once  more  faithful  and 
more  calm  and  more  sacred.  And  my  dear  friend, 
you  too  must  learn  these  truths  about  the  life  of  any 
man  whom  you  are  trying  to  help,  any  man  who 
seems  to  be  committed  to  you  by  God,  or  you  cannot 
really  help  him  as  he  needs.  You  must  know  the 
mystery  of  his  life  and  his  sonship  to  God. 

Ah,  how  God  sometimes  teaches  us  those  things 


The  Mothers  Wonder.  31 

about  some  one  whom  we  are  trying  to  guide  and 
aid.  Wo  have  undertaken  our  task  very  flippantly 
and  narrowly.  "  Well,  this  is  my  man,"  we  say,  "  I 
do  not  see  who  else  can  help  him,  and  so  I  will.  I 
will  patronize  him.  I  understand  him ;  I  see  what 
is  to  be  made  out  of  him ;  I  will  make  him  this,  and 
this," — laying  some  fine  plan  down  in  our  mind. 
"This  is  what  he  shall  be,"  and  so  you  take  your 
scholar  into  your  school ;  your  companion  into  your 
company ;  what  you  call  your  friend  into  what  you 
call  your  friendship.  The  time  must  come,  if  you 
are  ever  really  going  to  be  of  deepest  use  to  that 
man,  when,  out  of  something  which  he  says  or  does, 
these  two  truths  come  to  you  about  him,  that  he 
is  larger  in  his  nature,  more  mysterious  than  you 
can  grasp,  and  that  he  is  the  son  of  God,  led  by 
his  Father,  over  and  above  your  care. 

We  talk  about  men's  neglect  of  one  another's  lives, 
and  certainly  there  is  enough  of  it.  They  go  their 
way  saying  of  each  other,  in  some  utterance  of  their 
indifference,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  We 
recognize  how  terrible  it  is  because  we  see  that,  as 
of  old,  he  who  scornfully  disowned  his  brother's  care, 
really  was  his  brother's  murderer,  so  always  he 
who  thinks  he  has  no  duty  of  helping  other  men, 
certainly  hinders  them  and  does  them  harm.  But 
beside  all  the  pain  at  seeing  how  men  disown  the 
care  of  their  fellows,  there  is  another  pain  which  is 
often  yet  more  painful  as  we  see  how  men  who  do 
attempt  to  help  their  brethren,  help  them  all  wrong, 
with  such  ignorant  and  clumsy  hands  that  they  do 


32  The  Mother  s  Wonder, 


them  more  harm  than  good.  Meddlesomeness,  arro- 
gance, foolish  indulgence,  wanton  severity,  wooden 
insistence  upon  a  way  of  goodness  which  God  never 
meant  for  the  man  whom  you  are  trying  to  make 
good,  opposition  to  good  impulses  because  they  hap- 
pen to  be  in  other  lines  than  yours,  fussiness,  suspic- 
ion, jealousy,  all  of  these  evils  come  in,  and  others 
witli  them,  to  make  sometimes  worse  than  worthless 
the  most  sincere  desire  of  some  good  man  to  help 
ai id  guide  his  neighbor.  Blind  leading  the  blind 
everywhere !  What,  it  seems  to  me,  all  these 
good  people  need,  is  this:  the  larger  view  of  the  life 
that  they  are  anxious  for.  There  is  a  mystery  about 
this  man  which  I  cannot  fathom.  And  this  man  is 
a  child  of  God.  You  say,  "  I  might  feel  that  about, 
some  inspired  child  whom  I  was  privileged  to  teach. 
How  can  I  feel  it  about  this  poor  sot,  whom  I  am 
trying  to  keep  out  of  the  grog-shop;  or  this  poor 
tritier  and  lounger  whom  I  want  to  bring  to  church ; 
or  this  poor  creature  with  the  shattered  nerves  whom 
I  must  watch  lest  he  should  throw  himself  into  the 
fire  ?  Can  I  count  his  life  mysterious,  count  him  a 
child  of  God  ?  "  Unless  you  can,  you  cannot  help  him 
with  any  truly  deep  help.  You  may  keep  him  un- 
scorched  and  presentable,  but  the  shattered,  broken, 
wasted  life  at  the  centre,  where  its  real  exhaustion 
lies,  will  get  no  reinforcement  from  the  man  who  has 
no  reverence  for  it  and  no  sense  of  God's  love  for  it. 
The  moment  that  Moses  forgot  that  the  people  he 
was  leading  were  God's  people,  and  smote  the  rock, 
crying,   "Hear,  0    Israel,  must  1  bring  you   water 


The  Mother  s  Wonder.  33 

from  this  rock  ?  "  that  moment  his  highest  help  to 
them  was  gone.  He  could  give  them  water  still,  but 
the  water  which  he  gave  as  if  it  were  his  gift,  and 
not  God's,  was  an  insult  both  to  them  and  to  God ; 
and  from  that  day  his  death  began. 

And  if  we  ask  what  will  be  the  characteristics  of 
the  ministry  of  any  man,  who,  while  he  renders 
help  to  other  men,  feels  these  truths  deeply  about  the 
men  to  whom  he  ministers,  the  answer  will  be  clear. 
It  will  have  the  qualities  which  we  can  easily  imag- 
ine to  have  been  in  the  treatment  of  the  child  Jesus 
by  His  mother  after  her  experience  in  the  Temple. 
It  will  consist  in  general  inspiration  more  than  in 
special  direction ;  and  it  will  be  more  occupied  in 
removing  obstacles  to  growth  than  in  dictating  the 
forms  and  directions  in  which  growth  shall  grow. 
The  best  advisers,  helpers,  friends,  always  are  those 
not  who  tell  us  how  to  act  in  special  cases,  but  who 
give  us,  out  of  themselves,  the  ardent  spirit  and  de- 
sire to  act  right,  and  leave  us  then,  even  through 
many  blunders,  to  find  what  our  own  form  of  right 
action  is.  And  always  the  best  thing  you  can  do  for 
any  brother,  I  am  more  and  more  convinced,  is  to 
try  to  keep  him  from  being  a  bad  man,  and  so  give 
God  a  chance  to  make  him  a  good  man  in  whatever 
way  He  may  choose.  This  takes  away  the  superior 
and  patronizing  tone  which  is  the  blight  of  many  a 
man's  most  sincere  desire  to  be  useful.  This  leaves 
the  humblest  free  to  help  the  highest.  The  mouse 
may  gnaw  the  lion's  net,  but  he  does  not  ask  the 

freed  lion  to  crawl  into  the  wall  with  him  and  live  a 
3 


34  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

mouse's  life.  So  you  may  help  a  strong  man  to 
shake  off  his  vice,  but  when  he  is  at  liberty,  leave 
him  to  God  to  learn  what  life  God  made  him  for,  and 
be  thankful  if  it  is  something  a  great  deal  larger  and 
higher  than  your  own. 

There  are  small  men  to  whom  all  this  would  be 
depressing.  They  do  not  want  to  do  anything  for 
other  men  unless  they  can  take  the  whole  work  into 
their  own  hands  and  make  it  wholly  theirs.  For  a 
larger  man  it  is  a  great  deal  nobler  and  more  enno- 
bling to  work  with  God  and  on  a  material  of  which 
God  has  shown  to  him  the  mystery.  A  weak  He- 
brew mother,  with  a  poor  stupid  boy  who  never  left 
the  company  with  any  true  impulsive  life  to  seek 
the  God  whom  he  belonged  to,  may  well  have 
pitied  Mary,  and  thought  her  unhappy  in  her  wilful 
child.  But  "  Mary  kept  all  these  things  and  pon- 
dered them  in  her  heart."  She  learned  that  it  was 
nobler  to  bring  her  boy  to  God  and  see  him  take  God 
for  his  Father,  than  it  was  to  keep  him  to  herself. 
And  so  you  and  I  come  to  understand  that  the 
type  of  the  truest  relationship  between  man  and 
man  is  not  the  Romish  confessional,  the  spiritual  di- 
rectorship where  one  man  gives  his  life  into  another's 
hands,  but  is  the  frank  friendship  of  generous  men, 
wherein  each  helps  the  other,  but  is  always  glad  to 
know  that  he  is  really  only  helping  God  to  help  him; 
and  so  each  always  rejoices  to  see  the  other,  under 
God,  outgo  himself. 

But  we  must  not  stop  here.  There  is  a  yet  deeper 
and  closer  care  laid  upon  a  man  than  his  care  for  his 


The  Mothers  Wonder.  35 

brother,  and  that  is  the  care  of  himself,  of  his  own 
soul.  And  there  too  the  truth  applies  which  we 
have  won  out  of  our  story  of  Jesus  and  his  mother. 
There  too  it  is  true  that  a  man  cannot  execute  his 
responsibility  aright  unless  in  that  for  which  he  is 
responsible  he  sees  something  mysterious,  and  a 
child  of  God. 

A  man's  care  for  himself !  How  strange  it  is ! 
How  a  man  seems  to  separate  his  life ;  to  stand  off,  as 
it  were,  and  gaze  at  his  own  life  with  criticism  and 
anxiety.  It  is  the  commonest  of  all  experiences 
with  all  thoughtful  people.  "  Know  thyself,"  says 
the  old  proverb;  as  if  the  knower  and  the  known 
were  genuinely  two,  distinct  from  one  another. 
"Keep  thy  heart  with  diligence,"  says  Scripture,  as 
if  the  heart  and  the  heart-keeper  were  separate. 
The  will  and  wisdom  stand  guard  over  the  conscience 
and  the  character. 

A  man  who  is  really  thoughtful,  who  has  risen  to 
the  capacity  of  such  self-care,  praises  himself,  and 
blames  himself,  with  a  more  even-handed  justice  be- 
cause with  a  more  intimate  and  conscientious  knowl- 
edge, than  that  with  which  he  judges  of  the  lives  of 
other  men.  He  is  to  himself  like  something  outside 
of  himself,  with  whose  conditions  nevertheless  all  his 
own  fortunes  are  inextricably  bound  up.  Therefore 
he  lays  out  plans  for  his  own  treatment.  He  says: 
"I  will  make  myself  this  or  that."  He  says,  "  I  will 
bring  myself  to  my  best  in  this  or  that  way."  And 
then,  as  he  tries  to  carry  out  his  plans,  he  becomes 
aware  that  on  this  self  of  his  which  he  considered  so 


36  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

entirely  his  own,  in  his  own  power,  some  other  force 
besides  his  own  is  working.  He  finds  himself 
the  subject  of  some  other  will  and  wisdom,  some 
other  education  than  his  own.  His  plans  for  his  own 
life  are  overruled  and  interfered  with.  He  meant  to 
educate  his  self  by  self-indulgence;  this  other  force, 
below  his  own,  sweeps  his  self  off  into  distress  and 
deprivation.  He  meant  to  live  in  self-complacency ; 
the  deeper  force  plunges  him  into  mortification  and 
shame.  It  is  as  if  the  wind  thought  that  it  was  ruling 
the  waves  which  it  tossed  to  and  fro,  but  gradually 
became  aware  of  the  tide  which  underneath  was 
heaving  the  great  ocean  on  whose  surface  only  the 
wind  spent  its  force. 

Is  this  a  true  picture  of  human  life  as  the  thought- 
ful man  comes  to  know  it  ?  I  think  it  is.  Who  is 
there  of  us  that  is  not  aware  that  his  soul  has  had 
two  educations  ?  Sometimes  the  two  have  been  in 
opposition ;  sometimes  they  have  overlapped ;  some- 
times they  have  wholly  coincided;  but  always  the 
two  have  been  two.  Our  own  government  of  our- 
selves is  most  evident,  is  the  one  which  we  are  most 
aware  of,  so  that  sometimes  for  a  few  moments  we 
forget  that  there  is  any  other;  but  very  soon  our  plans 
for  ourselves  are  so  turned  and  altered  and  hindered 
that  we  cannot  ignore  the  other  greater,  deeper  force. 
We  meant  to  do  that,  and  look  !  we  have  been  led  on 
to  this.  We  meant  to  be  this,  and  lo !  we  are  that.  We 
never  meant  to  believe  this,  and  lo,  we  hold  it  with 
all  our  hearts.  What  does  it  mean  ?  It  is  the  ever- 
lasting discovery,  the  discovery  which  each  thought- 


The  Mother's  Wonder.  27 

ful  man  makes  for  himself  with  almost  as  much  sur- 
prise as  if  no  other  man  had  ever  made  it  for  himself 
before,  that  this  soul,  for  which  he  is  responsible,  is 
not  his  soul  only,  but  is  God's  soul  too.  The  revela- 
tion which  came  of  old  to  the  Virgin  Mother  about 
her  child — Not  your  child  only,  but  God's  child  too; 
yours,  genuinely,  really  yours,  but  behind  yours,  and 
over  yours,  God's. 

That  is  the  great  revelation  about  life.  When  it 
comes,  everything  about  one's  self-culture  is  altered. 
Every  anticipation  and  thought  of  living  changes  its 
color.  It  comes  sometimes  early,  and  sometimes  late 
in  life.  Sometimes  it  is  the  flush  and  glow  which  fills 
childhood  with  dewy  hope  and  beauty.  Sometimes  it 
is  the  peace  which  gathers  about  old  age  and  makes 
it  happy.  Whenever  it  comes  it  makes  life  new.  See 
what  the  changes  are  which  it  must  bring.  First  it 
makes  anything  like  a  bewildering  surprise  impossi- 
ble. When  I  have  once  taken  it  into  my  account 
that  God  has  his  plans  for  my  soul's  culture,  that 
these  plans  of  His  outgo  and  supersede  any  plans  for 
it  which  I  can  make,  then  any  new  turn  that  comes 
is  explicable  to  me,  and,  though  I  may  not  have  an- 
ticipated it  all,  I  am  not  overwhelmed,  nor  disturbed, 
nor  dismayed  by  it.  I  find  a  new  conviction  growing 
in  my  soul,  another  view  of  life,  another  kind  of  faith. 
It  is  not  what  I  had  intended.  I  had  determined 
that  as  long  as  I  lived  I  would  believe  something 
very  different  from  this  which  I  now  feel  rising  and 
taking  possession  of  me.  It  seems  at  first  as  if  my 
soul  had  been  disloyal  to  me,  and  had  turned  its  back 


38  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

faithlessly  upon  my  teaching.  I  appeal  to  it,  and 
say:  "Soul,  why  hast  thou  thus  dealt  with  me?" 
And  it  answers  back  to  me :  "  Wist  you  not,  that  I 
must  be  about  my  Father's  business?  Did  you  not 
know  that  I  was  God's  soul  as  well  as  your  soul  ? 
This  is  something  Avhich  He  has  taught  me." 

That  is  the  real  meaning,  my  dear  friends,  of  many 
a  case  in  which  men  say,  "  I  do  not  know  how  I  came 
to  believe  this  truth.  I  never  sought  it.  I  never 
meant  to  believe  it.  I  always  said  I  never  would 
believe  it.  But  the  belief  in  it  has  come  about  in 
spite  of  myself."  It  was  the  over-fatherhood  of  God. 
It  was  God  claiming  His  own  soul.  Let  a  man  see 
this,  and  he  welcomes  the  convictions  that  have  come 
to  his  soul  thus  direct  from  God,  even  more  cordially 
than  those  which  he  has  sought  out  and  won  with 
deliberate  toil.  What  he  has  believed  in  spite  of  him- 
self he  believes  even  more  strongly  than  what  he  has 
struggled  to  believe.  He  cannot  be  jealous  of  what 
God  does  for  his  soul.  He  is  like  a  servant  taking 
care  of  a  child,  with  the  father  of  the  child  standing 
behind  and  watching  and  making  plans  with  a  wis- 
dom which  the  servant  rejoices  to  know  is  wiser  than 
his.  Oh,  if  there  were  no  higher  guidance  than 
what  we  can  give  to  our  own  lives  !  Oh,  if  our  souls 
never  outstripped  the  plans  which  we  make  for  them  ! 
Oh,  if  we  never  came  to  more  truth  than  we  are 
brave  enough  and  wise  enough  to  seek ! 

There  are  two  different  conditions  in  which  a  man 
receives  without  bewildering  surprise  the  changes 
which  come  to  him  in  life.     One  is  the  condition  of 


The  Mother  s  Wonder.  39 

the  man  who  believes  in  no  government  of  life  at  all. 
The  other  is  the  condition  of  the  man  who  thorough- 
ly believes  that  God  is  governing  his  life.  To  both 
of  these  men  mystery  is  not  merely  conceivable ;  it  is 
inevitable.  To  one  it  is  the  vague,  dreary  mystery 
of  chance.  To  the  other  it  is  the  rich,  gracious  mys- 
tery of  loving  care.  To  one  it  is  the  mystery  of  ac- 
cident, the  most  awful  and  demoralizing  atmosphere 
for  a  man  to  live  in.  To  the  other  it  is  the  mystery 
of  personal  life,  which  is  the  noblest  end  of  thought 
which  man  can  reach  on  any  side.  Neither  of  these 
men  can  be  surprised.  One  of  them  cries,  "  It  is  an- 
other accident !  "  The  other  cries,  "  It  is  my  father !  " 
when  any  most  unlooked-for  thing  occurs.  Between 
the  two  there  stands  the  man  with  his  own  tight  self- 
made  plan  of  living  which  he  looks  to  see  fulfilled, 
denying  both  mysteries,  refusing  to  believe  in  acci- 
dent and  yet  ignoring  God.  He  is  the  man  whose 
life  is  all  battered  and  buffeted  with  surprises.  He 
is  like  a  man  who  sails  the  ocean  and  refuses  to  be- 
lieve in  tides.  No  wonder  that  after  a  long  and 
dreary  voyage,  he  drags  at  last  a  broken  and 
wrecked  life  up  on  a  beach  which  he  never  dreamed 
of  when  he  started. 

The  other  consequence  of  the  great  revelation  of 
life,  the  revelation  that  the  soul  for  which  we  care  is 
God's  soul,  for  which  He  is  caring  too,  will  be  that  the 
true  man  will  have  one  great  purpose  in  living,  and 
only  one.  He  will  try  to  come  to  harmony  with 
God,  to  perfect  understanding  of  what  God  wants 
and  is  trying  to  do.     Let  me  not  be  trying  to  make 


4-0  The  Mother  s  Wonder. 

one  thing  out  of  this  soul  of  mine  while  He  is  trying 
to  make  entirely  another !  Once  more  return  to  the 
story  which  has  given  us  our  suggestions  for  to-day. 
As  Mary  went  back  with  her  son,  realizing  out  of  his 
own  mouth,  that  he  was  not  only  her  son,  but  God's ; 
as  she  settled  down  with  him  to  their  Nazareth  life 
again,  must  not  one  single  strong  question  have 
been  upon  her  heart,  '"  What  does  God  want  this  Son 
of  His  to  be  ?  0,  let  me  find  that  out,  that  1  may 
work  with  Him."  And  as  you  go  into  the  house 
where  you  are  to  train  your  soul,  realizing,  through 
some  revelation  that  has  come  to  it,  that  it  is  God's 
soul  as  well  as  yours,  one  strong  and  single  question 
must  be  pressing  on  you  too.  "  What  does  God  want 
this  soul  of  mine  to  be  ?  0,  let  me  find  that  out 
that  I  may  work  with  Him."  And  how  can  you  find 
that  out  ?  Only  by  finding  Him  out.  Only  by  un- 
derstanding what  He  is,  can  you  understand  what  He 
wants  you  to  do.  And  understanding  comes  by  love. 
And  love  to  God  comes  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ. 
See  then,  what  is  the  divine  progress  of  self-culture. 
You  let  Christ  give  you  his  blessings.  Through 
gratitude  to  Him  you  come  to  the  love  of  God. 
By  loving  God  you  understand  God.  By  understand- 
ing God  you  come  to  see  what  He  wants  you  to 
be,  and  so  you  are  ready  to  work  with  Him  for  your 
own  soul.  From  the  first  touch  of  Christ's  hand  in 
blessing,  on  to  the  eternal  work  of  laboring  with 
God  for  our  own  sanctification,  that  is  the  progress 
of  the  Christian  life. 

The  Son  of  Mary  was  a  revelation  to  the  mother 


The  Mothers  Wonder.  41 

in  whose  care  He  lived.  So  a  man's  soul,  his  spirit- 
ual nature  which  is  intrusted  to  his  care,  is  a  per- 
petual revelation  to  him.  If  you  can  only  know  that 
your  soul  is  God's  child,  that  He  is  caring  for  it  and 
training  it,  then  it  may  become  to  you  the  source  of 
deep  divine  communications.  God  will  speak  to  you 
through  your  own  mysterious  life.  He  will  show 
you  his  wisdom  and  goodness,  not  in  the  heaven 
above  you,  but  in  the  soul  within  you.  He  will  make 
you  His  fellow- worker  in  that  which  is  the  most  di- 
vine work  of  His  of  which  we  can  have  any  know- 
ledge, the  training  and  perfecting  of  a  soul.  That 
is  the  privilege  of  every  man  who  knows,  and  finds 
his  life  and  joy  in  knowing,  that  the  soul  which  lives 
within  him,  the  soul  which  he  calls  his  soul,  is  the 
child  of  God. 


SERMON  III 

A  DOMESTIC   MISSIONARY  SERMON. 

11  Tfo  Church  of  the  living  God."—l  Tim.  iii.  15. 

I  WANT  to  preach  to  you  to-day  about  the  Church, 
It  has  grown  to  be  our  habit  on  this  Sunday  morn- 
ing, when  we  annually  make  our  contribution  for  Do- 
mestic Missions,  to  speak  especially  and  definitely 
about  the  Church ;  not,  that  is,  directly  of  the  personal 
Christian  experience,  but  of  the  great  corporate  body 
of  Christian  life  throughout  the  world,  and  especially 
of  that  particular  organization  in  which  we  live  and 
worship,  and  whose  work  in  our  own  country  we  are 
to  contribute  to  extend.  If  the  Church  is  often 
thought  about,  and  talked  about,  in  a  petty  and  me- 
chanical and  formal  way,  let  us  be  very  careful,  if 
we  can,  to  avoid  formality  and  pettiness  in  our  talk 
of  her  to-day.  Let  us  try  to  make  her  seem  what 
she  really  is,  the  Church  of  the  living  God,  and  the 
Home  of  living  men. 

Let  us   begin    then  with  one  of  the  most  pictu- 
resque and  striking  and  perhaps  perplexing  incidents 

which  occur  in  the  Church's  life.    A  minister  is  called 
42 


The   Church  of  the  Living  God.        43 

upon  to  baptize  a  little  dying  child.  It  is  an  infant  of 
a  day.  A  ray  of  light  has  come  from  heaven,  and 
just  flashed  for  an  instant  into  the  great  flood  of 
sunlight,  and  now  is  being  gathered  back  again  into 
the  darkness  out  of  which  it  came.  The  minister 
goes  and  baptizes  the  unconscious  child.  He  does  an 
act  which  perhaps  to  those  who  stand  around,  seems 
like  the  blankest  superstition.  "  What  does  it  mean?" 
they  say.  "  Have  a  little  sprinkled  water  and  a  few 
whispered  words  any  influence  upon  this  flickering 
flame  of  life  which  in  a  moment  is  to  go  out?  If 
the  child  is  to  live  elsewhere  after  its  brief  life  here 
on  earth  is  over,  will  this  ceremony  do  it  any  good  ? 
If  it  revives  and  lives  its  life  out  here  on  earth,  will 
it  live  any  better  for  this  hurried  incantation?" 
Meanwhile,  to  the  minister,  and  to  the  Church  of 
which  he  is  a  minister,  that  baptism  of  the  dying 
child  has  a  profound  and  beautiful  significance.  It 
is  not  thought  of  for  a  moment  as  the  saving  of  the 
child's  soul.  The  child  dying  unbaptized  goes  to  the 
same  loving  care  and  education  which  awaits  the 
child  baptized.  But  the  baptism  is  the  solemn, 
grateful,  tender  recognition,  during  the  brief  mo- 
ments of  that  infant's  life  on  earth,  of  the  deep  mean- 
ings of  his  humanity.  It  is  the  human  race  in  its 
profoundest  self-consciousness  welcoming  this  new 
member  to  its  multitude.  Only  for  a  few  moments 
does  he  tarry  in  this  condition  of  humanity ;  his  life 
touches  the  earth  only  to  leave  it;  but  in  those  few 
moments  of  his  tarrying,  humanity  lifts  up  its  hand 
and  claims  him.    She  says,  "  You  are  part  of  me,  and 


44        The  Church  of  the  Living  God. 

being  part  of  me,  you  are  part  of  me  forever.  Your 
life  may  disappear  from  mortal  sight  almost  before 
we  have  seen  it,  but,  wherever  it  may  go,  it  is  a  hu- 
man life  forever.  It  belongs  to  God,  as,  and  because 
humanity  belongs  to  Him."  Humanity,  recognizing 
itself  as  belonging  to  God,  recognizes  this  infant 
portion  of  herself  as  belonging  to  Him,  claims  it  for 
Him,  takes  it  into  her  own  most  consecrated  hopes, 
appropriates  for  it  that  redemption  of  Christ  which 
revealed  man's  belonging  to  God,  declares  it  a  mem- 
ber of  that  Church  which  is  simply  humanity  as  be- 
longing to  God,  the  divine  conception  of  humanity, 
her  own  realization  of  herself  as  it  belongs  to  God. 

Can  there  be  any  act  more  full  of  significance, 
more  free  from  superstition  ?  And  is  there  not  in 
this  act,  just  because  of  the  feeble  unconsciousness 
of  the  child  to  whom  it  is  administered,  the  most 
distinct  indication  of  the  nature  of  the  Church  into 
which  he  is  admitted  ?  There  is  no  fact  developed 
yet  about  the  child  except  his  pure  humanity.  We 
know  nothing  whatsoever  about  his  talents,  or  his 
character.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  he  is 
rich  or  poor.  He  may  lie  cradled  in  daintiest  lace, 
or  in  most  squalid  rags.  Beauty  or  ugliness,  bright- 
ness or  dullness,  friendship  or  friendlessness,  good 
blood  or  bad  blood,  are  not  taken  into  account;  we 
baptize  him,  be  he  what  he  may,  so  that  only  he  is  a 
human  creature,  the  child  of  human  parents,  the 
sharer  of  our  human  nature ;  we  baptize  him  into  the 
fellowship  of  consecrated  humanity,  into  the  Church 
of  the  living  God. 


The  Church  of  the  Living  God.        45 


Have  we  not  then  presented  to  us  in  this  simple 
ceremony,  which  to  one  bystander  may  seem  so  in- 
significant and  to  auother  so  superstitious,  the  deep- 
est and  broadest  meaning  of  the  Christian  Church  ? 
It  is  the  body  of  redeemed  humanity.  It  is  man  in 
his  deepest  interests,  in  his  spiritual  possibilities.  It 
is  the  under-life,  the  sacred,  the  profounder  life  of 
man,  his  re-generation.  Every  human  being  in  very 
virtue  of  birth  into  the  redeemed  world  is  a  poten- 
tial member  of  the  Christian  Church.  His  baptism 
claims  and  asserts  his  membership. 

And  now  suppose  that  Baptism  were  universal,  and 
suppose  that  instead  of  being,  what  it  is  so  often, 
even  among  Christian  people,  a  formal  ceremony, 
everywhere  it  were  a  living  act,  instinct  with  mean- 
ing, what  a  world  this  would  be  !  Every  new-born 
immortal  welcomed  by  the  whole  spiritual  conscious- 
ness of  his  race !  There  is  some  true  sense,  we  may 
well  believe,  in  which  the  physical  life  of  humanity 
grows  richer  through  its  whole  substance  by  the 
added  life  of  each  new  body.  Just  in  proportion  as 
the  spiritual  is  more  sensitive  than  the  physical, 
may  we  not  hold  that  the  spirituality  of  the  whole 
race  is  richer  for  the  access  of  this  new  soul  ?  Bap- 
tism is  the  utterance  of  the  rejoicing  welcome.  The 
whole  world  of  spiritual  capacity  thrills  with  de 
light  and  expectation.  The  Church  accepts  its  new 
member  and  undertakes  his  education.  For  wThat 
time  he  is  to  be  in  her,  a  part  of  her,  before  he  goes 
to  his  eternal  place  to  be  a  member  of  the  Church  in 
heaven,  whether  it  be  for  a  few  short  hours  or  for  a 


46        The  Church  of  the  Living  God. 

long  eighty  years,  the  Church  belongs  to  him  and  he 
belongs  to  the  Church.  If  he  does  good  work  it  is 
the  Church's  gain  and  glory.  If  he  sins,  and  is 
profligate,  it  is  as  a  member  of  the  Church  that  he  is 
wicked.  The  Church  is  spiritual  humanity,  and  he, 
a  spiritual  human  being,  is,  by  that  very  fact,  a 
Churchman. 

I  cannot  tell  you,  my  dear  friends,  how  strongly 
this  view  takes  possession  of  me  the  longer  that  I 
live.  I  cannot  think,  I  will  not  think  about  the 
Christian  Church  as  if  it  wei*e  a  selection  out  of 
humanity.  In  its  idea  it  is  humanity.  The  hard, 
iron-faced  man  whom  I  meet  upon  the  street,  the 
degraded,  sad-faced  man  who  goes  to  prison,  the 
weak,  silly-faced  man  who  haunts  society,  the  dis- 
couraged, sad-faced  man  who  drags  the  chain  of 
drudgery,  they  are  all  members  of  the  Church,  mem- 
bers of  Christ,  children  of  God,  heirs  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Their  birth  made  them  so.  Their  bap- 
tism declared  the  truth  which  their  birth  made  true. 
It  is  impossible  to  estimate  their  lives  aright,  unless 
we  give  this  truth  concerning  them  the  first  impor- 
tance. 

Think  too,  what  would  be  the  meaning  of  the  other 
sacrament,  if  this  thought  of  the  Church  of  the  liv- 
ing God  were  real  and  universal.  The  Lord's  Supper, 
the  right  and  need  of  every  man  to  feed  on  God,  the 
bread  of  divine  sustenance,  the  wine  of  divine  inspi- 
ration offered  to  every  man,  and  turned  by  every  man 
into  what  form  of  spiritual  force  the  duty  and  the 
nature  of  each  man  required,  how  grand  and  glorious 


The  Church  of  the  Living  God.        47 

its  mission  might  become!  No  longer  the  mystic 
source  of  unintelligible  influence;  no  longer  cer- 
tainly the  test  of  arbitrary  orthodoxy ;  no  longer  the 
initiation  rite  of  a  selected  brotherhood ;  but  the 
great  sacrament  of  man !  The  seeker  after  truth, 
with  all  the  world  of  truth  freely  open  before  him, 
would  come  to  the  Lord's  table,  to  refresh  the  freedom 
of  his  soul,  to  liberate  himself  from  slavery  and  pre- 
judice. The  soldier  going  forth  to  battle,  the  student 
leaving  college,  the  legislator  setting  out  for  Wash- 
ington, the  inventor  just  upon  the  brink  of  the  last 
combination  which  would  make  his  invention  perfect, 
the  merchant  getting  ready  for  a  sharp  financial  crisis, 
all  men  full  of  the  passion  of  their  work,  would  come 
there  to  the  Lord's  Supper  to  fill  their  passion  with 
the  divine  fire  of  consecration.  They  would  meet  and 
know  their  unity  in  beautiful  diversity — this  Christian 
Church  around  the  Christian  feast.  There  is  no 
other  rallying  place  for  all  the  good  activity  and 
worthy  hopes  of  man.  It  is  in  the  power  of  the 
great  Christian  Sacrament,  the  great  human  sacra- 
ment, to  become  that  rallying-place.  Think  how  it 
would  be,  if  some  morning  all  the  men,  women  and 
children  in  this  city  who  mean  well,  from  the  re- 
former meaning  to  meet  some  giant  evil  at  the  peril 
of  his  life  to  the  school  boy  meaning  to  learn  his 
day's  lesson  with  all  his  strength,  were  to  meet  in  a 
great  host  at  the  table  of  the  Lord,  and  own  them- 
selves His  children,  and  claim  the  strength  of  His 
bread  and  wine,  and  then  go  out  with  calm,  strong, 
earnest  faces  to  their  work.     How  the  communion 


48        The  Church  of  the  Living  God. 

service  would  lift  up  its  voice  and  sing  itself  in 
triumph,  the  great  anthem  of  dedicated  human  life. 
Ah,  my  friends,  that,  nothing  less  than  that,  is  the 
real  Holy  Communion  of  the  Church  of  the  living 
God. 

And  then  the  ministry,  the  ministers,  what  a  life 
theirs  must  be,  whenever  the  Church  thus  comes  to 
realize  itself!  We  talk  to-day,  as  if  the  ministers 
of  the  Church  were  consecrated  for  the  people.  The 
old  sacerdotal  idea  of  substitution  has  not  died 
away.  Sometimes  it  is  distinctly  proclaimed  and 
taught.  What  is  the  release  from  such  a  false  idea? 
Not  to  teach  that  the  ministers  are  not  consecrated, 
but  to  teach  that  all  the  people  are  ;  not  to  deny  the 
priesthood  of  the  Clergy,  but  to  assert  the  priesthood 
of  all  men.  We  can  have  no  hope,  I  believe,  of  the  de- 
struction of  the  spirit  of  hierarchy  by  direct  attack. 
It  may  be  smitten  down  a  thousand  times.  A  thou- 
sand times  it  will  rise  again.  Only  when  all  men 
become  full  of  the  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  their 
own  life,  will  the  assumption  of  supreme  clerical 
sacredness  find  itself  overwhelmed  with  the  great 
rising  tide.  The  fault  of  all  onslaughts  upon  the 
lofty  claims  of  the  ministry  has  been  here.  They  have 
vociferously  declared  that  ministers  were  no  better 
than  other  men.  They  have  not  bravely  and  devoted- 
ly claimed  for  all  men,  the  right  and  power  to  be  as 
good  and  holy  and  spiritual  as  any  St.  John  has  ever 
been  in  his  consecrated  ministry.  When  that  great 
claim  is  made  and  justified  in  life,  then,  not  till  then, 
lordship  over  God's  heritage  shall  disappear  and  the 


The  Church  of  the  Living  God.        49 

true  greatness  of  the  minister,  as  the  fellow-worker 
with  and  servant  of  the  humblest  and  most  strug- 
gling child  of  God,  shall  shine  out  on  the  world. 

Yet  once  more,  here  must  be  seen  the  true  place 
and  dignity  of  truth  and  doctrine.  It  is  not  knowl- 
edge anywhere  that  is  the  end  and  purpose  of  man's 
labor  or  of  God's  government.  It  is  life.  It  is  the 
full  activity  of  powers.  Knowledge  is  a  means  to 
that.  Why  is  it  that  the  Church  has  magnified  doc- 
trine overmuch  and  throned  it  where  it  does  not  be- 
long ?  It  is  because  the  Church  has  not  cared  enough 
for  life.  She  has  not  overvalued  doctrine ;  she  has 
undervalued  life.  When  the  Church  learns  that  she 
is  in  her  idea  simply  identical  with  all  nobly  active 
humanity,  when  she  thinks  of  herself  as  the  true  in- 
spirer  and  purifier  of  all  the  life  of  man,  then  she  will — 
what  ?  Not  cast  her  doctrines  away,  as  many  of  her 
impetuous  advisers  bid  her  do  ;  she  will  see  their  val- 
ue, their  precious  value,  as  she  never  lias  seen  it  yet ; 
but  she  will  hold  them  always  as  the  means  of  life, 
and  she  will  insist  that  out  of  their  depths  they 
shall  send  forth  manifest  strength  for  life  which 
shall  justify  her  holding  them. 

The  decrying  of  dogma  in  the  interest  of  life,  of 
creed  in  the  interest  of  conduct,  is  very  natural,  but 
very  superficial.  It  is  superficial  because,  if  it 
succeeded,  it  would  make  life  and  conduct  blind 
and  weak.  But  it  is  natural  because  it  is  the  crude 
healthy  outburst  of  human  protest  against  the  value 
of  dogma  for  its  own  sake,  of  which  the  Church 
has    always   been  too  full.     Let  us  not  join   in  it, 


5<3        The  Church  of  the  Living  God. 

Let  us  insist  that  it  is  good  for  man  to  know  every- 
thing he  can  know,  and  believe  everything  he  can 
believe  of  the  truth  of  God.  But  while  we  will  not 
pull  down  dogma,  let  us  do  all  we  can  to  build  up 
life  about  dogma,  and  demand  of  dogma  that  service 
which  it  is  the  real  joy  of  her  heart  to  render  to  life. 
I  will  not  hear  men  claim  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  has  no  help  or  inspiration  to  give  to  the  mer- 
chant or  the  statesman.  It  has  great  help,  great  in- 
spiration. I  will  not  hear  men  claim  that  it  means 
nothing  to  the  scholar  or  the  bricklayer  whether  he 
believes  or  disbelieves  in  the  Atonement.  It  means 
very  much  to  either.  Out  of  the  heart  of  those  doc- 
trines I  must  demand  the  help  and  inspiration  which 
they  have  to  give.  Then  I  must  do  all  that  I  can  to 
make  the  life  which  needs  that  help  and  inspiration 
hungry  for  them.  I  must  do  all  that  I  can  to  make 
the  world's  ordinary  operations  know  their  sacredness 
and  crave  the  sacred  impulse  which  the  dogmas  have 
to  give.  I  must  summon  all  life  to  look  up  to  the 
hills.  I  must  teach  the  world  that  it  is  the  Church, 
and  needs  and  has  a  right  to  all  the  Church's  privi- 
leges, and  so  make  it  cry  out  to  the  truths  of  the 
Trinity  and  Atonement  to  open  the  depths  of  their 
helpfulness,  as  they  never  have  heard  the  call  to 
open  them  when  only  theologians  were  calling  on 
them  to  complete  their  theologic  systems,  or  only  a 
few  special  souls  were  asking  them  for  special  com- 
forts or  assistance.  Here,  in  the  assertion  of  the 
great  human  Church,  is  the  true  adjustment  of  the 


The   Church  of  the  Living  God.        51 

relations  of  Doctrine  and  Life  !    Doctrine  kept  active 
by  life.     Life  kept  deep  by  doctrine. 

Ah,  but  you  say,  this  does  not  sound  like  the  New 
Testament.  There  certainly  the  Church  and  the 
world  are  not  the  same.  They  are  not  merely  differ* 
ent  ;  they  are  hostile  to  each  other.  There  is  a  per- 
petual conflict  between  the  two.  Indeed  there  isj 
But  what  Church  and  what  world  are  fighting  to- 
gether there  ?  The  Church  is  a  little  handful  of 
half-believers.  The  world  is  a  great  ocean  of  sensii" 
ality  and  secularity  and  sin.  Of  course  between 
those  two  there  is  an  everlasting  conflict,  so  long  as 
each  is  what  it  is.  The  world  distrusts  the  Church, 
in  part  at  least,  because  it  feels  coming  out  from  it 
no  spiritual  power.  The  Church  dreads  the  world, 
which  is  always  dragging  it  down  from  its  imper- 
fect loyalty  and  consecration.  But  he  has  listened 
very  carelessly  to  the  New  Testament  who  has  not 
heard  in  it  the  muffled,  buried  voices  of  another 
Church  and  another  world,  crying  out  for  life! 
A  Church  completely  strong  in  faith,  not  standing 
guard  over  herself,  but  boldly  claiming  all  the  world 
in  all  of  its  activities  for  Christ,  and  a  world  con- 
scious of  its  belonging  to  divinity,  counting  its  sin 
and  intrusion  an  anomaly,  a  world  ashamed  and 
hungry,  the  world  of  which  St.  Paul  dreamed,  the 
groaning  and  travailing  creation.  How  often  as  we 
read  the  New  Testament,  this  deeper  Church  and 
this  deeper  world  are  dimly  seen  and  faintly  heard 
beneath  this  present  faithlessness  and  sin.  How, 
whenever  they  are  seen  and  heard,  we  recognize,  be- 


52         The   Church  of  the  Living  God. 

yond  a  doubt,  that  they  are  the  true  Church,  and  t\^j 
true  world,  and  that  every  departure  from  or  falling 
short  of  them  is  a  loss  of  the  Church's  or  the  world's 
reality.  And  how,  when  the  true  Church  and  the 
true  world  stand  before  us,  we  see  and  know  that 
they  are  not  in  conflict;  that  they  are  in  perfect  har- 
mony; nay,  far  more  than  that,  that  they  are  identi- 
cal with  one  another. 

There  is  no  fight  so  fierce  and  vehement  as  that 
which  rages  between  two  beings  which  ought  to  be 
perfectly  one,  but  which,  because  each  falls  short  of 
what  it  was  designed  to  be,  are  now  in  conflict  with 
each  other.  So  long  as  the  Church  and  the  world  are 
what  they  are  there  must  be  discord.  We  who  are 
in  the  Church  must  keep  watchful  guard  over  her, 
and  must  dread  and  oppose  the  evil  influences  of  the 
world.  But  at  the  same  time  we  never  must  let 
ourselves  forget  that  all  this  is  unnatural.  We 
must  never  lose  out  of  our  sight  the  vision,  never 
lose  out  of  our  ears  the  music  of  the  real  Church  and 
the  real  world  struggling  each  into  perfection  for 
itself,  and  so  both  into  unity  and  identity  with  one 
another. 

Very  interesting  have  been  in  history  the  pulsa- 
tions, the  brightening  and  fading,  the  coming  and 
going  of  this  great  truth  of  the  Church  and  the 
world  ideally  identical.  That  truth  is  always  present 
in  the  words  of  Jesus.  He  told  his  disciples  how 
they  were  to  fight  with  the  actual  world,  to  be  per- 
secuted by  it,  even  to  be  murdered  by  it.  But  he 
\  as  always  pointing  abroad  and  saying,   "The  field 


The  Church  of  the  Living  God.         53 

is  the  world."    The  ideal  Church,  which  was  the  real 
Church  in  his  eyes,  knew  no  limit  but  humanity. 

By-and-by  came  the  persecutions  of  the  early 
Church,  and  they  drove  the  Church  in  upon  itself, 
and  made  the  few  believers  think  of  themselves  as 
outcasts  and  exceptions.  The  intensity  of  their  per- 
sonal experiences  dulled  and  dimmed  the  thought  of 
their  being  simply  representatives  of  all  humanity. 
The  Church  lived  like  a  sect  of  souls  with  special 
privileges  and  illuminations. 

The  mediaeval  Church  in  its  own  way  caught 
sight  again  of  the  idea  of  universality,  but  it  was 
formal  and  selfish.  It  did  not  think  of  itself  as  ful- 
filling the  life  of  the  world,  but  of  the  world  as  ex- 
isting for  it,  and  to  be  practically  swallowed  up  in 
its  dominion.  Still  it  had  some  notion  of  it  and  the 
world  coming  to  identity  with  one  another,  though 
it  was  almost  the  identity  of  the  wolf  with  the 
sheep  which  he  has  devoured. 

With  the  Protestant  Reformation  came  another  in- 
tense assertion  of  the  personal  nature  of  religion, 
and  the  larger  aspects,  the  world-meaning  of  the 
Church,  was  lost  or  lay  in  silence.  Calvinism  was 
too  busy  with  the  intense  problem  of  the  individual 
soul  to  think  much  of  the  great  Redemption  of  the 
world,  of  all  humanity. 

But  now,  when  in  these  latter  days,  there  are  so 
many  signs  that  we  are  passing  into  a  new  region, 
beyond  the  strong  immediate  power  of  the  Reforma- 
tion which  has  prevailed  from  the  sixteenth  century 
till  now,  it  is  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  act- 


54         The  Church  of  the  Living  God. 

ive  world,  the  conflict  and  the  possible  harmony  be- 
tween them,  the  message  of  the  Church  to  the  world, 
the  turning  of  the  world  into  the  Church,  these  are 
the  problems  and  the  visions  which  are  more  and 
more  occupying  the  minds  of  thoughtful  vision-see- 
ing men. 

Such  alternations  and  pulsations  cannot  go  on  for- 
ever. The  hostility  of  the  Church  to  the  world,  and 
the  conformity  of  the  Church  to  the  world,  neither 
of  them  is  the  final  condition,  nor  shall  the  Church 
vacillate  between  them  always.  Gradually,  slowly, 
but  at  last  surely,  this  must  come  forth  which  we 
saw  testified  even  in  the  hurried  baptism  of  the  lit- 
tle child  who  made  this  earth  his  home  but  for  a 
single  day,  that  the  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  so  that 
to  be  living  in  this  earth  is  to  belong  to  God;  and 
that  all  human  life  is  by  the  very  fact  of  its  human- 
ity a  portion  of  His  Church. 

I  think  that  we  can  do  the  best  work  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church  only  in  the  light  of  that  truth  cordially 
acknowledged.  Because  that  truth  is  coming  to 
more  and  more  cordial  acknowledgment,  I  believe 
that  the  Christian  Church  is  becoming  a  better  and 
a  better  place  to  work  in  every  year.  If  I  ask  where 
in  the  Christian  Church  one  can  best  live  and  work, 
I  answer  myself  that  it  will  be  where  that  truth  is 
most  vital,  where  it  makes  most  strongly  the  real 
power  of  the  Church's  life. 

And  this  brings  me  to  what  little  I  want  to  say 
about  our  own  Church,  on  this  morning  when  we  are 
to  make  our  annual  contribution  for  the  extension  of 


The  Church  of  the  Living  God.         55 

her  work.  We  value  and  love  our  Communion  very 
deeply.  To  many  of  us  she  has  been  the  nurse,  al- 
most the  mother  of  our  spiritual  life.  To  all  of  us 
she  is  endeared  by  long  companionship,  and  by  famil- 
iar sympathy  in  the  profoundest  experiences  through 
which  our  souls  have  passed.  When  we  deliberately 
turn  our  backs  for  a  moment  upon  all  these  rich  and 
sweet  associations,  and  ask  ourselves  in  colder  and 
more  deliberate  consideration,  why  it  is  that  we  be- 
lieve in  our  Episcopal  Church  and  rejoice  to  com- 
mend her  to  our  fellow-countrymen  and  fellow-men; 
the  answer  which  I  find  myself  giving,  is  that  our 
Church  seems  to  me  to  be  truly  trying  to  realize  this 
relation  to  the  whole  world,  this  sacredness  of  all 
life,  this  ideal  belonging  of  all  men  to  the  Church  of 
Christ,  which,  as  I  have  been  saying,  is  the  great 
truth  of  active  Christianity.  I  find  the  signs  of  such 
an  effort,  in  the  very  things  for  which  some  people 
fear  or  blame  our  Church.  I  find  it  in  the  impor- 
tance which  she  gives  to  Baptism  and  in  the  breadth 
of  her  conception  of  that  rite ;  for  Baptism  is  the 
strongest  visible  assertion  of  this  truth.  I  find  it  in 
her  simplicity  of  doctrine.  I  find  it  in  the  value 
which  she  sets  on  worship;  her  constant  summons  to 
all  men  not  merely  to  be  preached  to,  but  to  pray ; 
her  firm  belief  in  the  ability  and  right  of  all  men  to 
offer  prayer  to  God.  I  find  it  in  her  strong  historic 
spirit,  her  sense  of  union  with  the  ages  which  have 
past  out  of  sight  and  of  whose  men  we  know  only 
their  absolute  humanity. 
In  all  these  things  I  recognize  the  true,  strong  ten- 


56         The  Church  of  the  Living  God. 

dency  which  our  Church  has  to  draw  near  to  the  life 
of  the  world,  and  to  draw  the  world's  life  near  to  her. 
In  this  tendency  all  true  Churchmen  must  rejoice. 
Her  breadth  of  doctrine,  her  devoutness,  and  her  clear 
hold  upon  the  long  history  of  human  life,  all  these 
qualify  her  for  a  great  work  in  bringing  up  human- 
ity, and  making  it  know  itself  for  what  it  is,  the  true 
universal  Church  of  the  Living  God,  toward  which  all 
ecclesiastical  establishments  which  have  thus  far  ex- 
isted in  the  world,  have  been  attempts,  of  which  they 
have  been  preparatory  studies. 

Can  our  Church  do  any  such  great  office  as  this 
for  the  America  in  which  she  is  set  ?  There  are  some 
of  her  children  who  love  to  call  her  in  exclusive 
phrase  The  American  Church.  She  is  not  that;  and  to 
call  her  that  would  be  to  give  her  a  name  to  which 
she  has  no  right.  The  American  Church  is  the  great 
total  body  of  Christianity  in  America,  in  many  divi- 
sions, under  many  names,  broken,  discordant,  disjoint- 
ed, often  quarrelsome  and  disgracefully  jealous,  part 
of  part,  yet  as  a  whole  bearing  perpetual  testimony 
to  the  people  of  America  of  the  authority  and  love 
of  God,  of  the  redemption  of  Christ,  and  of  the  sa- 
cred possibilities  of  man.  If  our  Church  does  especial 
work  in  our  country,  it  must  be  by  the  especial  and 
peculiar  way  in  which  she  is  able  to  bear  that  wit- 
ness ;  not  by  any  fiction  of  an  apostolical  succession 
in  her  ministry,  which  gives  to  them  alone  a  right  to 
bear  such  witness.  There  is  no  such  peculiar  privi- 
lege of  commission  belonging  to  her  or  any  other 
body.     The  only  right  of  any  body  liea  in  the  earnest 


The  Church  of  the  Living  God.         57 

will  and  in  the  manifest  power.  The  right  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  America  lies  in  the  earnest  faith  that 
the  Gospel  is  the  only  salvation  of  the  people,  first 
as  men,  and  then  as  Americans;  whoever  brings  that 
faith  has  the  right  to  preach ;  whoever  does  not  bring 
it  has  no  right,  be  the  fancied  regularity  of  his  com- 
mission what  it  may ! 

In  some  sense  there  has  been  reason  to  fear,  and 
there  is  still  reason  to  fear,  that  what  makes  part  of 
the  strength  of  our  Church,  may  also  make  part  of 
its  weakness.  Its  historic  sense  binds  it,  in  a  very 
live  way,  to  the  sources  from  which  it  immediately 
sprang,  and  tempts  it  to  treasure  overmuch  its 
association  with  the  great  Church  of  another  land, 
the  Church  of  England.  So  long  as  it  does  that  it 
can  never  truly  be  the  Church  of  America.  So  long 
as  it  prefers  to  import  customs  and  costumes,  names 
and  ways,  instead  of  creating  them  here  out  of  the 
soil  on  which  she  lives,  she  will  be  what  she  has  been 
in  very  much  of  her  history,  what  she  is  in  many 
parts  of  the  land  to-day,  an  exotic  and  not  a  true 
part  of  the  nation's  life.  The  Episcopal  Church's  only 
real  chance  of  powerful  life,  is  in  the  more  and  more 
complete  identification  of  herself  with  the  genius  and 
national  life  of  America. 

To  do  that,  she  must  become  a  great  moral  power. 
No  careful  preservation  of  the  purity  of  doctrine,  no 
strictness  of  ecclesiastical  propriety,  can  take  the 
place  of  moral  strength.  It  is  by  the  conscience, 
that  the  Church  must  take  hold  of  this  people.  It  is 
in  the  conscience,  that  the  nation  is  uneasy.     In  its 


rfi         The  Church  of  the  Living  God. 

uneasy  conscience,  it  sees  the  vision  and  hears  the 
voices  of  the  life  it  might  be  living.  To  the  con- 
science of  the  nation  then,  the  Church  that  is  must 
speak  to  tell  the  nation  of  the  Church  that  it  might 
be.  The  Church  which  forty  years  ago  had  bravely 
cried  out  at  iihe  sin  of  slavery,  would  be  more  power- 
ful than  we  can  imagine  in  America  to-day.  The 
Church  which  to-day  effectively  denounces  intem- 
perance, and  the  licentiousness  of  social  life,  the 
cruelty  or  indifference  of  the  rich  to  the  poor,  and 
the  prostitution  of  public  office,  will  become  the  real 
Church  of  America.  Our  Church  has  done  some 
good  service  here.  She  ought  to  do  much  more. 
Largely  the  Church  of  the  rich,  she  ought  to  rebuke 
rich  men's  vices  and  to  stir  rich  men's  torpidity. 
She  ought  to  blow  her  trumpet  in  the  ears  of  the 
young  men  of  fortune,  summoning  them  from  their 
clubs  and  their  frivolities  to  do  the  chivalrous  work, 
which  their  nobility  obliges  them  to  do  for  fellow- 
man.  She  ought  to  speak  to  Culture,  and  teach  it  its 
responsibility.  She  ought  to  make  real  contributions 
to  the  creation  of  that  atmosphere  of  brotherhood 
and  hope  and  reverence  for  man,  in  which  alone  there 
is  any  chance  that  the  hard  social  and  economical 
problems  of  the  present  and  the  future  can  find 
solution.  If  she  can  do  such  things  as  these,  she 
will  be  following  in  the  steps  of  all  the  largest 
minded,  deepest-hearted  Fathers  of  the  Church,  all 
the  way  from  St.  Paul  down.  That  is  the  true 
apostolical    succession.     That    she   must   not  boast 


The  Church  of  the  Living  God.         59 

that  she  has,  but  she  must  struggle  more  and  more 
earnestly  to  win. 

My  friends,  it  is  not  possible  for  the  true  man  to 
think  of  his  Church  without  thinking  of  his  country. 
I  cannot  be  the  Churchman  that  I  ought  without 
being  a  patriot.  On  this  Sunday  morning,  when  we 
plead  for  our  Church,  let  the  image  of  our  country 
stand  before  us,  with  her  chances,  with  her  dangers, 
with  her  glories,  with  her  sins  !  We  are  glad  indeed 
that  our  Church  is  not  the  only  church  which  is 
laboring  for  the  land's  salvation.  We  rejoice  in  all 
that  our  brother  Christians  of  other  names  are  doing-, 
but  we  believe  in  the  work  which  our  Church  has  to 
do.  We  pray  to  God,  0  keep  her  simple,  brave  and 
earnest,  free  from  fantasticalness  and  cowardice  and 
selfishness,  that  she  may  do  it.  We  look  on,  and 
far,  far  away  we  see  the  Nation-church,  the  land 
all  full  of  Christ,  the  Nation-church,  a  true  part  of 
the  World-church,  issuing  into  glorious  life,  and 
swallowing  up  our  small  ecclesiasticisms,  as  the  sun 
grandly  climbing  up  the  heavens  swallows  up  the 
scattered  rays  which  he  sent  out  at  his  rising.  And 
full  of  that  vision,  we  are  ready  to  do  what  we  can  to 
make  our  Church  strong  for  the  work  which  it  must 
do  in  preparation  for  that  day  ! 


SERMON  IV. 

ftadittfl  Mm  $wJ. 

"And  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God." 
Revelation  xx.  12. 

THE  life  which  we  are  living  now  is  more  aware  . 
than  we  know  of  the  life  which  is  to  come.  I 
Death,  which  separates  the  two,  is  not,  as  it  has  been 
so  often  pictured,  like  a  great  thick  wall.  It  is  rather 
like  a  soft  and  yielding  curtain,  through  which  we 
cannot  see,  but  which  is  always  waving  and  trem- 
bling with  the  impulses  that  come  out  of  the  life 
which  lies  upon  the  other  side  of  it.  We  are  never 
wholly  unaware  that  the  curtain  is  not  the  end  of 
everything.  Sounds  come  to  us,  muffled  and  dull,  but 
still  indubitably  real,  through  its  thick  folds.  Every 
time  that  a  new  soul  passes  through  that  vail  from 
mortality  to  immortality,  it  seems  as  if  we  heard  its 
light  footfalls  for  a  moment  after  the  jealous  curtain 
has  concealed  it  from  our  sight.  As  each  soul  passes, 
it  almost  seems  as  if  the  opening  of  the  curtain  to  let 
it  through  were  going  to  give  us  a  sight  of  the  un- 
seen things  beyond;  and,  though  we  are  forever  dis- 
appointed, the  shadowy  expectation  always  comes 
60 


Standing  Before  God.  61 

back  to  us  again,  when  we  see  the  curtain  stirred  by 
another  friend's  departure.  After  our  friend  has 
passed,  we  can  almost  see  the  curtain,  which  he 
stirred,  moving,  tremulously  for  a  while,  before  it 
settles  once  more  into  stillness. 

Behind  this  curtain  of  death,  St.  John,  in  his 
great  vision,  passed,  and  he  has  written  down  for  us 
what  he  saw  there.  He  has  not  told  us  many 
things;  and  probably  we  cannot  know  how  great 
the  disappointment  must  have  been  if  he  had  tried 
to  translate  into  our  mortal  language  all  the  ineffable 
wonders  of  eternity.  But  he  has  told  us  much  ;  and 
most  of  what  we  want  to  know  is  wrapped  up  in 
this  simple  and  sublime  declaration,  "  I  saw  the 
dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God." 

I  think  that  it  grows  clearer  and  clearer  to  us  all 
that  what  we  need  are  the  great  truths,  the  vast  and 
broad  assurances  within  which  are  included  all  the 
special  details  of  life.  Let  us  have  them,  and  we 
are  more  and  more  content  to  leave  the  special 
details  unknown.  With  regard  to  eternity,  for  in- 
stance, I  am  sure  that  we  can  most  easily,  nay,  most 
gladly,  forego  the  detailed  knowledge  of  the  circum- 
stances and  occupations  of  the  other  life,  if  only  we 
can  fully  know  two  things — that  the  dead  are,  and ' 
that  they  are  with  God.  All  beside  these  two  things 
we  can  most  willingly  leave  undiscovered.  And  those 
two  things,  if  we  can  believe  St.  John,  are  sure. 

"  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before 
God."  What  is  meant  by  ;' standing  before  God?" 
We  are  apt  to  picture  to  ourselves  a  great   dramatic 


62  S landing'  Before  God. 

scene.  Host  beyond  host,  rank  behind  rank,  the 
millions  who  have  lived  upon  the  earth,  all  standing 
crowded  together  in  the  indescribable  presence  of 
One  who  looks  not  merely  at  the  mass  but  at  the 
individual,  and  sees  through  the  whole  life  and  char- 
acter of  every  single  soul.  The  picture  is  sublime, 
and  it  is  what  the  words  of  St.  John  are  intended  to 
suggest.  But  we  must  get  behind  the  picture  to 
its  meaning.  The  picture  must  describe  not  one 
scene  only,  but  the  whole  nature  and  condition  of  the 
everlasting  life.  The  souls  of  men  in  the  eternal 
world  are  always  "  standing  before  God."  And  what 
.does  that  mean  ?  We  understand  at  once,  if  we  con- 
sider that  that  before  which  a  man  stands  is  the  stand- 
ard, or  test,  or  source  of  judgment  for  his  life.  Every 
man  stands  before  something  which  is  his  judge. 
The  child  stands  before  the  father.  Not  in  a  single 
act,  making  report  of  what  he  has  been  doing  on 
a  special  day,  but  in  the  whole  posture  of  his  life, 
almost  as  if  the  father  was  a  mirror  in  whom  he  saw 
himself  reflected,  and  from  whose  reflection  of  him- 
self he  got  at  once  a  judgment  as  to  what  he  was, 
aud  suggestions  as  to  what  he  ought  to  be.  The 
poet  stands  before  nature.  She  is  his  judge.  A  cer- 
tain felt  harmony  or  discord  between  his  nature  and 
her  ideal  is  the  test  and  directing  power  of  his  life. 
The  philosopher  stands  before  the  unseen  and  ma- 
jestic presence  of  the  abstract  truth.  The  philan- 
thropist stands  before  humanity.  The  artist  stands 
before  beauty.  The  legislator  stands  before  justice. 
The  politician  stands  before  that  vague  but  awful 


Standing  Before  God.  63 

embodiment  of  average  character,  the  people,  the 
demos.  The  fop,  in  miserable  servility,  stands  before 
fashion,  the  feeblest  and  ficklest  of  tyrants.  The 
scholar  stands  before  knowledge,  and  gets  the  satisfac- 
tions or  disappointments  of  his  life  from  the  approv- 
als or  disapprovals  of  her  serene  and  gracious  lips. 

You  see  what  the  words  mean.  Every  soul  that 
counts  itself  capable  of  judgment  and  responsibility, 
stands  in  some  presence  by  which  the  nature  of  its 
judgment  is  decreed.  The  higher  the  presence,  the 
loftier  and  greater,  though  often  the  more  oppressed 
and  anxious,  is  the  life.  A  weak  man,  who  wants  to 
shirk  the  seriousness  and  anxiety  of  life,  goes  down 
into  some  lower  chamber  and  stands  before  some 
baser  judge  whose  standard  will  be  least  exacting. 
A  strong,  ambitious  man  presses  up  from  judgment 
room  to  judgment  room,  and  is  not  satisfied  with 
meeting  any  standard  perfectly  so  long  as  there  is 
any  higher  standard  which  he  has  not  faced.  Greater 
than  anything  else  in  education,  vastly  greater  than 
any  question  about  how  many  facts  and  sciences  a 
teacher  may  have  taught  his  pupil,  there  must  always 
be  this  other  question,  into  what  presence  he  has  in- 
troduced him;  before  what  standard  he  has  made  his 
pupil  stand:  for  in  the  answer  to  that  question  are 
involved  all  the  deepest  issues  of  the  pupil's  charac- 
ter and  life. 

And  now  St.  John  declares  that  when  he  passed 
behind  the  vail,  he  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great, 
stand  before  God.  Do  you  not  see  now  what  that 
means  ?     Out  of  all  the  lower  presences  with  which 


64  Standing  Before  God. 

they  have  made  themselves  contented ;  out  of  all  the 
chambers  where  the  little  easy  judges  sit  with  their 
compromising  codes  of  conduct,  with  their  ideas 
worked  over  and  worked  down  to  suit  the  conditions 
of  this  earthly  life ;  out  of  all  these  partial  and  imper- 
fect judgment  chambers,  when  men  die  they  are  all 
carried  up  into  the  presence  of  the  perfect  righteous- 
ness, and  are  judged  by  that.  All  previous  judg-, 
ments  go  for  nothing  unless  they  find  their  confirma-  j 
tion  there.  Men  who  have  been  the  pets  and  favor- 
ites of  society,  and  of  the  populace,  and  of  their  own 
self-esteem,  the  change  that  death  has  made  to  them 
is  that  they  have  been  compelled  to  face  another 
standard  and  to  feel  its  unfamiliar  awfulness.  Just 
think  of  it.  A  man  who,  all  his  life  on  earth  since 
he  was  a  child,  has  never  once  asked  himself 
about  any  action,  about  any  plan  of  his,  is  this 
right  ?  Suddenly,  when  he  is  dead,  behold,  he  finds 
himself  in  a  new  world,  where  that  is  the  only  ques- 
tion about  everything.  His  old  questions  as  to 
whether  a  thing  was  comfortable,  or  was  popular,  or 
was  profitable,  are  all  gone.  The  very  atmosphere 
of  this  new  world  kills  them.  And  upon  the 
amazed  soul,  from  every  side  there  pours  this  new, 
strange,  searching  question :  "  Is  it  right  ?"  Out  of  the 
ground  he  walks  on,  out  of  the  walls  which  shelter 
and  restrain  him,  out  of  the  canopy  of  glory  over- 
head, out  of  strange,  unexplored  recesses  of  his  own 
newly-awakened  life,  from  every  side  comes  pressing 
in  upon  him  that  one  question,  "  Is  it  right  ?"  That  I 
is  what  it  is  for  that  dead  man  to  "  stand  before  God." 


Standing  Before  God.  65 

And  then  there  is  another  soul  which,  before  it 
passed  through  death,  while  it  was  in  this  world,  had 
always  been  struggling  after  higher  presences.  Re- 
fusing to  ask  whether  acts  were  popular  or  profit- 
able, refusing  even  to  care  much  whether  they  were 
comfortable  or  beautiful,  it  had  insisted  upon  asking 
whether  each  act  was  right.  It  had  always  struggled  1 
to  keep  its  moral  vision  clear.  It  had  climbed  to 
heights  of  self-sacrifice  that  it  might  get  above  the 
miasma  of  low  standards  which  lay  upon  the  earth. 
In  every  darkness  about  what  was  right,  it  had  been ! 
true  to  the  best  light  it  could  see.  It  had  grown 
into  a  greater  and  greater  incapacity  to  live  in  any 
other  presence,  as  it  had  struggled  longer  and  longer 
for  this  highest  company.  Think  what  it  must  be 
for  that  soul,  when  for  it,  too,  death  sweeps  every  other 
chamber  back  and  lifts  the  nature  into  the  pure  light 
of  the  unclouded  righteousness.  Now  for  it,  too,  the) 
question,  "  Is  it  right  ?"  rings  from  every  side  ;  but  in 
that  question  this  soul  hears  the  echo  of  its  own  best- 
loved  standard.  Not  in  mockery,  but  in  invitation ;  not 
tauntingly,  but  temptingly ;  the  everlasting  goodness 
seems  to  look  in  upon  the  soul  from  all  that  touches 
it.  That  is  what  it  is  for  that  soul  to  "  stand  before 
God."  God  opens  his  own  heart  to  that  soul  and  is 
both  Judgment  and  Love.  They  are  not  separate. 
He  is  Love  because  He  is  Judgment ;  for  to  be  judged 
by  Him,  to  meet  His  judgment  is  what  the  soul  has 
been  long  and  ardently  desiring.  Tell  me,  when  two 
such  souls  as  these  stand  together  "  before  God,"  are 
they  not  judged  by  their  very  standing  there?     Are 


66  Standing  Before   God. 

not  the  deep  content  of  one,  and  the  perplexed  dis- 
tress of  the  other,  already  their  heaven  and  their  hell  ? 
Do  you  need  a  pit  of  fire,  and  a  city  of  gold,  to  em- 
phasize their  difference  ?  When  the  dead,  small  and 
great,  stand  before  God,  is  not  the  book  already 
opened,  and  are  not  the  dead  already  judged  ? 

"The  dead,  small  and  great,"  St.  John  says  that 
he  saw  standing  before  God.  In  that  great  judgment- 
day,    another   truth   is  that  the  difference  of  sizes 
among   human   lives,  of  which  we  make  so  much, ; 
passes  away,  and  all  human  beings,  in  simple  virtue 
of  their  human  quality,  are  called  to  face  the  everlast- 
ing righteousness.    The  child  and  the  greybeard,  the 
scholar  and  the  boor,  however  their  lives  may  have 
been  separated  here,  they  come  together  there.     See 
how  this  falls  in  with  what  I  said  before.    It  is  upon 
the  moral  ground  that  the  most  separated  souls  must 
always  meet.     Upon  the  child  and  the  philosopher 
alike  rests  the  common  obligation  not  to  lie,  but  to  tell 
the  truth.     The  scholar  and  the  plow-boy  both  are 
bound  to  be  pure  and  to  be  merciful.     Differently  as  , 
they  may  have  to  fulfil  their  duties,  the  duties  are  the  [ 
same  for  both.     Intellectual  sympathies  are  limited. 
The  more  men  study,  the  more  they  separate  them- 
selves into  groups  with  special  interests.     But  moral 
sympathies  are  universal.     The  more  men  try  to  do 
right,  the  more  they  come  into  communion  with  all 
other  men  who  are  engaged  in  the  same  struggle  all 
through  the  universe.    Therefore  it  is  that  before  the 
moral  judgment  seat  of  God  all  souls,  the  small  and 
great,    are   met   together.      All   may   be   good — all 


Standing  Before  God.  67 

may  be  bad ;  therefore,  before  Him,  whose  nature  is 
the  decisive  touchstone  of  goodness  and  badness  in 
every  nature  which  is  laid  upon  it,  all  souls  of  all 
the  generations  of  mankind  may  be  assembled. 

Think  what  a  truth  that  is.  We  try  to  find  some 
meeting  ground  for  all  humanity,  and  what  we  find 
is  always  proving  itself  too  narrow  or  too  weak.  The 
one  only  place  where  all  can  meet,  and  every  soul 
claim  its  relationship  with  every  other  soul,  is  before 
the  throne  of  God.  The  Father's  presence  alone  fur- 
nishes the  meeting-place  for  all  the  children,  regard- 
less of  differences  of  age  or  wisdom.  The  grave  and 
learned  of  this  earth  shall  come  up  there  before  God, 
and  find,  standing  in  His  presence,  that  all  which 
they  have  truly  learned  has  not  taken  them  out  of 
the  sympathy  of  the  youngest  and  simplest  of  their 
Father's  children.  On  the  other  hand,  the  simple 
child,  who  has  timidly  gazed  afar  off  upon  the  great 
minds  of  his  race,  when  he  comes  to  stand  with 
them  before  God,  will  find  that  he  is  not  shut  out 
from  them.  He  has  a  key  which  will  unlock  their  doors 
and  let  him  enter  into  their  lives.  Because  they  are 
obeying  the  same  God  whom  he  obeys,  therefore  He 
has  some  part  in  the  eternal  life  of  Abraham,  and 
Moses,  and  Paul.  Not  directly,  but  through  the  God 
before  whom  both  of  them  stand,  the  small  and 
great  come  together.  The  humility  of  the  highest 
and  the  self-respect  of  the  lowest  are  both  perfectly 
attained.  The  children,  who  have  not  been  able  to 
understand  or  hold  communion  with  each  other  di- 
rectly, meet  perfectly  together  in  the  Father's  house, 


68  Standing  Before  God. 

and  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  in  complete 
sympathy  and  oneness  before  God. 

Another  thought  which  is  suggested  by  St. 
John's  verse,  is  the  easy  comprehension  of  the  finite 
by  the  infinite.  All  the  dead  of  all  the  generations 
stand  before  God  together.  How  such  a  picture 
sends  our  imagination  back.  We  think  how  many 
men  have  died  upon  the  earth.  We  think  of  all  the 
ages  and  of  all  the  lands.  We  think  of  all  the  un- 
counted myriads  who  died  before  history  began. 
We  see  the  dusk  of  the  world's  earliest  memory 
crowded  with  graves.  We  let  our  minds  begin  to 
count  the  countless  dead  of  Asia,  with  its  teeming 
kingdoms  ;  of  this  America  of  ours,  with  its  sugges- 
tions of  extinguished  races.  We  remember  the  earth- 
quakes, the  battle-fields,  the  pestilences.  We  hear 
the  helpless  wail  of  infancy,  which,  in  all  the  genera- 
tions, has  just  crept  upon  the  earth  long  enough  to 
claim  life  with  one  plaintive  cry,  and  die.  Where 
should  we  stop  ?  We  know  that  "  All  that  tread  the 
globe  are  but  a  handful  to  the  tribes  that  slumber 
in  its  bosom;"  and  yet  how  crowded  is  the  globe  to- 
day. Not  one  must  be  left  out !  We  heap  up  mil- 
lions upon  millions  until  we  weary  of  the  mere  reit- 
eration, and  numbers  cease  to  have  a  meaning.  And 
yet  not  one  must  be  left  out !  All  must  be  there. 
All  the  dead,  small  and  great,  out  of  all  the  ages; 
out  of  all  the  lands  !  All  the  dead,  small  and  great,  , 
are  standing  before  God.  Is  there  an  effort  more 
staggering  than  this,  the  effort  to  gather  up  in 
our  imagination  all  the  hosts  of  humanity,  and  be- 


Standing  Before  God.  60 

lieve  in  the  true  immortality  of  every  one  of  them  ? 
Here,  I  think,  is  where  the  faith  of  many  men  in 
their  own  immortality  staggers  the  most.  If  only 
there  were  not  so  many  of  us  !  A  man  feels  his  own 
soul,  and  its  very  existence  seems  to  promise  him  that 
he  is  immortal.  And  in  his  brethren,  whose  life  he! 
watches,  he  sees  the  same  signs  that  for  them  too 
there  is  another  life.  But  when  he  looks  abroad,  the 
multitude  dismays  him.  There  are  so  many  souls. 
What  world  can  hold  them  all  ?  What  care  can  re- 
cognize, and  cover  and  embrace  them  all  ?  If 
there  only  were  not  so  many  of  us  !  The  thought  of 
one's  own  immortality  sinks  like  a  tired  soldier  on  a 
battle-field,  overwhelmed  and  buried  under  the  multi- 
tude of  the  dead.  Have  not  many  of  you  felt  this 
bewilderment  ?  I  think  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
common  forms  in  which  perplexity,  not  clear  and 
definite,  but  vague  and  terribly  oppressive,  lays  itself 
upon  a  human  soul.  What  can  we  say  to  it  ?  How 
can  we  grasp  and  believe  in  this  countless  army  of 
immortals  who  come  swarming  up  out  of  all  the  lands 
and  all  the  ages  ?  There  is  only  one  way.  Multiply 
numbers  as  enormously  as  you  will,  and  the  result 
is  finite  still.  Then  set  the  finite,  however  large,  into 
the  presence  of  the  infinite,  and  it  is  small.  Its  limi- 
tations show.  There  is  no  finite,  however  vast,  that 
can  overcrowd  the  infinite;  none  that  the  infinite 
cannot  most  easily  grasp  and  hold. 

Now,  St.  John  says,  that  he  saw  all  the  hosts  of 
the  dead  stand  "before  God."  We  too  must  see 
them  stand  before  God,  and  they  will  not  oppress  us. 


7<d  Standing  Before  God. 

For  God  is  infinite,  and  a  thousand  million  draughts 
come  no  nearer  to  exhausting  infinity  than  ten  would 
come.  Here  must  be  the  real  solution  of  our  diffi- 
culty, in  the  infinity  of  God.  You  say,  "  I  can  have  five 
friends  and  understand  them,  and  discriminate  be- 
tween them,  and  love  them  all;  but  give  me  fifty 
friends  and  you  swamp  me  in  the  ocean  of  their  needs. 
I  have  not  intelligence,  nor  care,  nor  sympathy 
enough  to  comprehend  them  all."  But  make  yourself 
infinite,  and  then  the  difficulty  disappears.  Unnum- 
bered souls  may  stand  before  you  then,  and  you  can 
open  a  vastness  of  nature  which  shall  take  them  all 
in,  and  be  to  each  one  just  as  much  a  friend  as  if  there 
were  no  others ;  yet  being  all  the  while  the  compre- 
hending and  including  presence  which  embraces  all. 

Be  sure  that  if  you  will  begin  not  by  counting  the 
multitude  of  the  dead,  and  asking  yourself  how  any 
celestial  meadow  where  you  can  picture  them  assem- 
bled can  hold  them  all,  but  by  lifting  yourself  up  and 
laying  hold  on  the  infinity  of  God,  you  will  find  range 
enough  in  Him  for  all  the  marvellous  conception  of 
the  immortality  of  all  men.  Every  thought  of  man 
depends  upon  what  you  first  think  of  God.  Make 
your  thought  of  God  large  enough,  and  there  is  no) 
thought  of  man  too  large  for  you  to  think  within  it. 

Take,  then,  these  three  ideas,  and  I  think  that  we 
can  see  something  of  what  it  must  have  been  for 
souls  to  stand,  as  John  the  Evangelist  in  his  great 
vision  saw  them  standing  before  God.  They  had 
gone  up  above  all  the  small  and  temporary  standards, 
and  laid  their  lives  close  upon  the  one  perfect  and 


Standing  Before  God.  71 

eternal  standard  by  which  men  must  be  judged.  No 
longer  did  it  matter  to  them  whether  they  were  rich 
or  poor,  whether  men  praised  them,  or  abused  them, 
or  pitied  them.  The  one  question  about  themselves, 
into  which  all  other  questions  gathered  and  were 
lost,  was  whether  they  were  good,  whether  they 
were  obedient  to  God. 

And  then,  along  with  this,  there  had  come  to  them 
a  true  and  cordial  meeting  with  their  brethren.  No 
child  of  their  Father  was  too  lofty  or  too  low  for  them 
to  be  truly  his  brethren,  when  they  stood,  small  and 
great,  together  before  God. 

And  yet,  again,  in  presence  of  the  Infinite,  they 
had  comprehended  their  immortality.  They  had 
seen  how,  within  that  life  to  which  their  lives 
belonged,  there  was  room  for  a  growth  which  might 
go  on  to  all  eternity. 

No  wonder  that  as  St.  John  looked  upon  that  vis- 
ion it  filled  all  his  soul  with  joy.  No  wonder  that  he 
hastened  back  to  tell  it  to  the  men  and  women  who 
were  yet  upon  the  earthward  side  of  the  thick  curtain 
of  death.  "  I  have  seen  the  dead,"  he  cried.  "  Those 
who  have  gone  from  us  into  the  darkness,  all  our 
friends  who  have  gone  so  silently,  so  sorrowfully, 
holding  fast  to  this  life  as  long  as  they  could,  going 
into  the  mystery  upon  the  other  side  only  when  they 
must,  sending  back  no  word  out  of  the  darkness  into 
which  they  went — I  have  seen  them  all !  I  actually 
looked  upon  them.  Among  the  millions  who  have 
gone  like  them  out  of  all  the  lands,  I  saw  them. 
They  were  standing  before  God.     They  are  living. 


72  Standing  Before  God. 

They  are  far  more  living  than  you  are  who  are  left 
behind  them  here."  Must  not  the  remembrance  of 
such  a  sight  have  filled  his  soul  with  joy  ?  Must  it 
not  have  been  present  with  him  afterward,  whenever 
he  saw  a  new  soul  depart  to  join  the  vast  company 
whom  he  had  seen  standing  before  God  ? 

There  is  the  difference  between  his  view  of  death 
and  ours.  He  saw  what  souls  go  to.  We  are  so  apt 
to  see  only  what  souls  go  from.  When  our  friend' 
dies  we  think  of  all  the  warm  delights  of  life,  all  the 
sweet  friendships,  all  the  interesting  occupations, 
all  the  splendor  of  the  sunlight  which  he  leaves  be- 
hind. If  we  could  only  know,  somewhat  as  John 
must  have  known  after  his  vision,  the  presence  of 
God  into  which  our  friend  enters  on  the  other  side,  the 
higher  standards,  the  larger  fellowship  with  all  his 
race,  and  the  new  assurance  of  personal  immortality 
in  God;  if  we  could  know  all  this,  how  our  poor  com- 
fortless efforts  of  comfort  when  our  friends  depart, 
our  feeble  raking-over  of  the  ashes  of  memory,  our 
desperate  struggles  to  think  that  the  inevitable  must  be 
all  right ;  how  this  would  all  give  way  to  something 
almost  like  a  burst  of  triumph,  as  the  soul  which  we 
loved  went  forth  to  such  vast  enlargement,  to  such 
glorious  consummation  of  its  life  !  We  should  be 
able  to  forget  our  own  sorrow,  or  at  least  to  bear  it 
gladly,  in  our  thankfulness  for  him,  as  the  generous 
farmer-boy  might  see  his  brother  taken  from  his  side 
to  be  made  a  king,  and  toil  on  himself  all  the  more 
cheerfully  at  his  humble  and  solitary  labor,  think- 
ing of  the  glory  to  which  his  brother's  life  had  come. 


Standing  Befoix  God.  73 

It  is  well,  then,  with  those  to  whom  John's  vision 
is  fulfilled.  Blessed  are  the  dead  who  die  in  the 
Lord,  and  stand  immortal  before  Him. 

And  now  one  question  still  remains  !  Is  the  ful- 
filment of  the  vision  of  St.  John  for  any  man  to  wait 
until  that  man  is  dead  ?  Can  only  the  dead  stand 
before  God  ?  Think  for  a  moment  what  we  found  to 
be  the  blessings  of  that  standing  before  God,  and 
then  consider  that  those  privileges,  however  they 
may  be  capable  of  being  given  more  richly  to  the  soul 
of  man  in  the  eternal  world,  are  privileges  upon 
whose  enjoyment  any  man's  soul  may  enter  here. 
Consider  this,  and  the  question  at  once  is  answered. 
Already,  now,  you  and  I  may  live  by  the  standards 
of  the  eternal  righteousness,  and  we  may  claim  our 
brotherhood  with  the  least  and  the  greatest  of  oud 
fellow-men,  and  we  may  so  lay  hold  on  God  that  we 
shall  realize  our  immortality.  The  soul  that  has  done 
all  that,  is  now  standing  before  God.  It  does  not 
need  to  push  aside  the  curtain,  and  to  enter  into  the 
unknown  world  which  lies  behind.  While  the  man 
is  living  here,  walking  these  common  streets,  living 
in  closest  intercourse  with  other  men,  he  is  already  in 
the  everlasting  presence,  and  his  heaven  has  begun. 

But  now  these  are  the  very  things  which  Jesus; 
Christ  promises  to  give,  and  which  he  has  given  to/ 
multitudes  of  men.  All  who  will  come  to  Him  and 
serve  Him  are  brought  thereby  to  the  loftiest  stand-  / 
ards  of  righteousness,  to  the  broadest  and  deepest 
human  fellowship,  and  to  such  a  true  knowledge  of/ 
God  that  their  own  immortality  becomes  real  to  themi 


74  Standing  Before  God. 

Is  it  not  true,  then,  that  Christ  does  for  the  soul 
which  follows  him,  that  which  the  experience  of  the 
eternal  world  shall  take  up  and  certify,  and  complete  ? 
Already  in  Him  we  begin  to  live  the  everlasting  life. 
Already  its  noble  independence,  its  deep  discrimi- 
nation, its  generous  charity,  its  large  hopefulness, 
its  great  abounding  and  inspiring  peace  gathers 
around  and  fills  the  soul  which  lives  in  obedience  to 
Him.  Already,  as  He  himself  said,  "  He  that  believ- 
eth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life." 

And  yet,  while  we  need  not  wait  till  we  are  dead 
for  the  privilege  and  power  of  "  standing  before  God," 
yet  still  the  knowledge  of  that  loftier  and  more  man- 
ifest standing  before  Him,  which  is  to  come  in  the  un- 
seen land,  of  which  St.  John  has  told  us,  may  make 
more  possible  the  true  experience  of  the  divine  pres- 
ence which  we  may  have  here.  Because  I  am  to 
stand  before  Him  in  some  yet  unimagined  way, 
seeing  Him  with  some  keener  sight,  hearing  His 
words  with  some  quicker  hearing  which  shall 
belong  to  some  new  condition  of  eternity,  therefore 
I  will  be  sure  that  my  true  life  here  consists  in  such  a 
degree  of  realization  of  His  presence,  such  a 
standing  before  Him  in  obedience,  and  faith,  and  love, 
as  is  possible  for  one  in  this  lower  life. 

When  the  change  comes  to  any  of  us,  my  friends, , 
how  little  it  will  be,  if  we  have  really  been,  through 
the  power  of  Jesus  Christ,  standing  before  God, 
in  our  poor,  half-blind  way  upon  the  earth.  If  now, 
in  the  bright  freshness  of  your  youth,  you  give  your- 
self to  Christ,  and  through  him  do  indeed  know  God 


Standing  Before  God.  75 

as  your  dearest  friend,  years  and  years  hence,  when 
the  curtain  is  drawn  back  for  you,  and  you  are  bid- 
den to  join  the  host  of  the  dead  who  stand  before  God 
eternally,  how  slight  the  change  will  be.  Only  the 
change  from  the  struggle  to  the  victory,  only  the 
opening  of  the  dusk  and  twilight  into  the  perfect  day. 
"Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant,  thou  hast 
been  faithful  over  a  few  things.  Enter  thou  into  the  1 
joy  of  thy  Lord." 


SERMON  V. 

gfrflttotort  fa  (&M%\. 

"Simon,  called  Peter,  and  Andrew  Ms  brother;  James  the  son  of 
Zebedee,  and  John  his  brother." — Matthew  x.  2. 

IN  the  list  of  the  apostles  of  Jesus  there  are  two 
pairs  of  brothers.  We  cannot  tell,  of  course,  what 
were  the  reasons  which  directed  the  Master's  choice 
among  the  fishermen  of  Galilee  of  those  who  were  to 
preach  his  Gospel  and  to  be  the  first  pastors  of  hi& 
Church ;  but  certainly  it  is  significant  and  suggestive 
that  twice  in  the  small  number  of  the  twelve  it 
should  have  happened  that  the  natural  tie  of  broth- 
erhood was  emphasized  by  a  common  call  to  the  new 
life  and  a  common  work  in  the  same  service.  It 
suggests  the  relationship  which  may  exist  between 
our  common  human  kinships  and  those  loftier  and 
diviner  influences  which  are  always  seeking  admis- 
sion to  the  life  of  man. 

Simon  and  Andrew,  James  and  John — they  had 
grown  up  together  in  their  simple  homes  beside  the 
Sea  of  Galilee,  passing  on  from  childhood  into  youth, 
from  youth  into  manhood,  under  the  same  influ- 
ences, keeping,  as  brothers  will  keep,  that  openness 
76 


Brotherhood  in  Christ.  yy 

between  their  lives  which  came  of  the  same  early 
memories.  You  know  how  brothers,  however  far  they 
drift  apart,  have  always  doors  between  their  lives 
which  keep  them  in  communication.  The  doors  may 
be  long  blocked  up  with  the  great  burdens  of  later  life 
which  have  been  piled  against  them  ;  the  locks  may 
have  grown  rusty  and  the  keys  may  have  been  lost; 
yet  still  the  doors  are  there,  and  the  wall  never  is  quite 
as  thick  and  solid  as  are  the  walls  which  divide  other 
lives.  The  doors  may  still  some  day  be  opened,  and 
even  while  they  remain  closed,  there  come  sounds 
through  them  of  what  is  being  done  upon  the  other 
side.  Surely  such  relations,  never  completely  closed, 
existing  between  human  creatures  all  over  the 
world,  must  have  something  to  do  with  the  diffusion 
through  human  life  of  any  great  influence  of  thought 
or  feeling. 

The  world  is  covered  with  a  network  of  brother- 
hoods. The  first  and  simplest  relationships  run  on 
and  out  in  every  direction,  and  multiply  themselves 
till  hardly  any  man  stands  entirely  alone.  This  net- 
work of  brotherhoods,  like  every  evident  fact  of  life, 
sets  us  to  asking  three  questions — first,  what  is  its 
immediate  cause  ?  second,  what  is  its  direct  result  ? 
and  third,  what  is  its  final  reason  ?  These  are  the 
three  questions  which  the  thoughtful  man  asks 
about  every  fact. 

And  with  relation  to  this  fact  the  answer  to  the 
first  two  questions  is  very  plain.  The  cause  of  this 
interwoven  network,  this  reticulation  of  life  with  life, 
is  the  whole  system  of  nature  by  which  each  human 


yS  Brotherhood  in  Christ. 

being  takes  its  start  from  another  human  being,  aiud 
is  kept,  for  a  time  at  least,  in  associations  of  company 
and  dependence  with  the  being  from  whom  it  sprang 
and  with  the  other  beings  who  have  the  same  source 
with  it.  And  the  direct  result  of  such  relationships 
is  also  plain.  They  are  full  of  mutual  helpfulness 
and  pleasure.  As  to  the  third  question,  the  answer  is 
not  so  entirely  clear  and  certain.  But,  as  we  watch 
and  think,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  are  at  least  led 
to  wonder  whether  one  final  cause  or  purpose  of  this 
interlacing  of  life  with  life,  by  natural  and  indisso- 
luble kinships,  may  not  be  just  this,  the  providing,  as 
it  were,  of  open  communications,  of  a  system  of 
shafts  or  channels  piercing  this  human  mass  in 
every  direction,  crossing  and  recrossing  one  another, 
through  which  those  higher  influences,  which  ought 
to  reach  every  corner,  and  every  individual  of  the 
great  structural  humanity,  may  be  freely  carried  ev- 
erywhere, and  no  most  remote  or  insignificant  atom 
of  the  mass  be  totally  and  necessarily  untouched. 

We  have  only,  I  think,  to  picture  to  ourselves  what 
would  be  the  case  if  there  were  no  such  great  sys- 
tem of  natural  relationships  covering  the  earth, 
somewhere  in  which  every  human  being  found  his 
place ;  and  then  we  see  how  reasonable  it  is  to  think 
that  the  great  system  which  actually  does  exist,  may 
have  been  created  for  this  purpose  which  I  have  de- 
scribed. Suppose  that  every  human  being  stood 
alone.  Suppose  that  every  atom,  however  it  may 
have  come  into  existence,  lay  next,  indeed,  to  other 
atoms,  but  with  no  lines  of  brotherhood  or  any  natural 


Brotherhood  in   Christ.  79 

relationship  between  them.  Can  we  not  feel  at  once 
how  different  the  world  would  be  ?  Every  truth  or 
power  which  was  to  fill  the  mass  would  have  to  be 
communicated  separately  by  a  special  act  to  every 
particle.  Some  little  transmission  there  might  be 
from  surface  to  surface,  but  none  from  heart  to  heart, 
of  these  atoms  which  were  strung  upon  no  cords  of 
brotherhood.  If  the  whole  mass  of  mankind  were  to 
be  infused  with  the  knowledge  of  God's  existence,  ev- 
ery separate  man  would  have  to  be  convinced  with 
his  own  evidence,  and  the  evidence  which  persuaded 
his  brethren  would  have  no  convincingness  for  him. 
I  can  imagine  only  one  result.  Good  influence,  right 
thought,  true  feeling  would  seem  almost  of  necessity 
to  be  obliged  to  lie  in  pools  here  and  there  upon  the 
great  expanse  of  human  life,  wherever  it  found  the 
most  sensitive  and  susceptible  minds;  great  districts 
of  humanity  being  totally  unreached,  instead  of  the 
great  broad  fields,  being  watered  through  and 
through.  Truth  would  flash  here  and  there  from 
a  splendid  diamond  nature  on  which  it  chanced  to 
strike,  and  be  but  one  thin  ray  of  intense  light.  It 
could  not  be  a  suffused  radiance  varying  always  in 
depth  and  richness,  but  lighting  every  man  and  car- 
ried everywhere  along  the  atmosphere  in  which  all 
priests  kept  brotherhood  with  one  another. 

Our  truth  is  this  then — that  the  natural  relations 
which  exist  between  man  and  man,  the  relations  of 
brotherhood,  sisterhood,  parenthood,  childhood,  and 
all  the  other  kinships  of  mankind,  have  one  at 
least  of  their  purposes,  and  one  of  their  most  sacred 


80  Brotherhood  in  Christ. 

purposes,  in  this — that  they  are  God's  great  system 
along  whose  lines  He  means  to  diffuse  his  truth  and 
influence  through  the  world.  They  are  a  structure 
of  channels,  honeycombing  the  mass  of  human  life, 
along  which  the  water  of  life  may  flow.  Look  at 
Christ's  Incarnation.  In  Him  we  know  that  God 
came  into  the  world.  And  see  how  it  was  that  God, 
in  Him,  appealed  to  and  diffused  Himself  through 
human  life.  He  sets  himself  right  into  the  midst  of 
a  human  family.  First  out  through  that  sacred  chan- 
nel which  lies  forever  open  between  a  mother  and 
her  child,  a  channel  through  which  the  currents 
which  flow  motherwards  are  no  less  strong  than  the 
currents  which  flow  child  wards,  through  that  channel 
first  his  influence  flows,  and  flows  so  spontaneously 
that  it  flows  even  while  it  is  yet  unconscious  of  it- 
self. His  mother  is  his  first  disciple — his  first  Christ- 
ian. Then  it  is  evident,  from  what  the  very  frag- 
mentary records  tell  us,  that  his  power  found  out  the 
other  open  channels  which  connect  a  man's  life  with 
his  brothers'  lives,  and  flowed  in  them.  "  Neither 
did  his  brethren  believe  on  him,"  we  read  at  first, 
as  if  their  unbelief  in  him  was  strongest  because 
his  appeal  to  them  had  been  the  closest  and  most  urg- 
ent. But  by-and-by  the  "  Lord's  brethren  "  stand  high 
among  his  disciples,  as  if  when  they  did  believe  in 
him  their  belief  was  the  most  natural  and  real  of  all. 
Around  his  cross  more  than  one  of  the  mourners  was 
of  his  kindred.  Is  it  not  evident  that  the  great  system 
of  the  universal  brotherhood  in  which  all  men  are 
children  of  the  same  Father,  was  reached  by  the 


Brotherhood  in   Christ.  81 

power  of  the  Son  of  God  through  the  smaller  system 
which  had  its  centre  in  the  household  of  the  carpen- 
ter? 

And  if  we  look  at  Christ's  larger  method,  at  the  way 
in  which  his  work  went  on  after  it  had  gone  beyond 
that  earliest  stage  among  his  personal  kindred,  the 
same  thing  still  appears.  His  truth  ran  abroad  in 
the  channels  which  were  made  by  the  natural  rela- 
tions of  mankind.  It  was  a  fulfilment  of  the  method 
of  the  Old  Testament,  in  which  again  and  again  the 
Jew  was  commanded  concerning  the  words  which 
God  had  spoken  unto  him:  "Thou  shalt  teach  them 
unto  thy  children."  So  Jesus  makes  the  father's  faith 
a  reason  for  the  sick  child's  restoral  to  health ;  so  he 
fills  the  home  at  Bethany  with  his  pervading  pres- 
ence; so  he  sends  the  recovered  lunatic  of  Gadara 
back  to  his  home,  to  spread  among  his  friends  the 
story  of  his  healing.  So  he  bids  his  disciples  make 
way  for  the  mothers  bringing  him  their  children ;  so 
he  finds  in  household  life  an  image  of  the  Everlast- 
ing Father's  willingness  to  hear  his  people's  prayer. 
True,  he  is  always  recognizing  that  the  ultimate  power 
of  his  religion  is  individual.  He  declares  that  some- 
times, in  its  assertion  of  itself,  it  will  break  up  family 
life  and  set  the  son  at  variance  against  the  father, 
and  the  daughter  against  her  mother.  But  all  that 
is  expressly  declared  to  be  unnatural.  It  is  the 
rending  of  a  family  life  which  is  not  worthy  of  the 
great  influence  which  it  has  to  transmit.  It  is  the 
bursting  of  a  channel  which  has  grown  too  weak   to 

carry  the  tides  of  the  religious  life.    The  whole  great 
6 


82  Brotherhood  in   Christ. 

scheme  of  Christianity,  with  its  family  Sacrament  of 
Baptism ;  with  its  family  conception  of  the  govern- 
ment of  God;  with  its  Table  of  the  Lord;  with  its 
graces,  which  are  all  transfigurations  of  the  family 
affections ;  this  Christianity  began  by  using,  and  has 
always  used,  the  network  of  natural  brotherhood 
which  it  found  enveloping  the  earth  as  a  means  for 
the  diffusion  of  its  truth  and  power.  Its  Christ  is 
no  philosopher,  dropping  seed-thoughts  into  single 
hearts,  thinking  only  of  individual  character,  or  at 
most  only  of  artificial  combinations,  of  states  built 
up  elaborately  and  with  complicated  laws.  He  is 
the  Son  of  Man,  entering  into  the  heart  of  the  hu- 
manity to  which  he  intrinsically  belongs,  beating 
his  truth  into  its  life-blood  and  making  his  power 
run  in  the  channels  of  its  primitive  affections. 

It  is  not  only  Christianity,  nor  only  religion,  that 
thus  makes  use  of  the  network  of  natural  relation- 
ship with  which  the  earth  is  covered.  Every  high- 
er and  more  spiritual  influence,  every  interest  which 
claims  more  of  man  than  his  mere  physical  appetites, 
avails  itself  of  this  same  first  fact  of  related  human 
life,  this  fact  that  no  man  stands  alone,  but  each  is 
bound  by  some  kind  of  kinship  in  with  all  the  rest. 
This  is  the  way  in  which  knowledge  spreads  itself. 
Along  the  lines  which  tie  the  father  to  the  child,  and 
the  older  to  the  younger  brother,  runs  the  commu- 
nication of  facts  and  the  contagion  of  the  enthusiasm 
of  learning.  Taste  spreads  itself  through  a  family 
circle  as  the  sun  spreads  its  light  through  an  atmos- 
phere where  every  particle  is  brother  to  every  other. 


Brotherhood  in   Christ.  83 


Patriotism  is  not  a  fire  which  each  new  citizen  has 
to  go  and  light  for  himself  at  the  central  altar  of  his 
country's  principles.  It  is  caught  in  the  warm  air  of 
loyal  homes.  It  kindles  unconsciously  where  hearts 
lie  close  together  in  the  first  relationships  of  man. 
Suppose  that  some  new  truth  came  to-day  to  take 
possession  of  humanity;  suppose  that  some  great 
practical  philosophy  desired  to  occupy  the  world; 
can  we  imagine  for  it  any  practicable  way  but  this, 
that  it  should  spread  along  these  lines  which  it 
would  find  already  marked  out  for  it,  the  lines  in 
which  influence  is  used  to  run,  the  lines  which 
God's  hands  have  hollowed  from  life  to  life,  from  soul 
to  soul? 

And  now  if  we  have  seen  the  principle,  let  us  ask 
ourselves  what  its  results  will  be.  If  religion  spreads 
itself  among  mankind  along  the  lines  of  man's  nat- 
ural affections  and  relationship,  the  results  which  we 
may  look  for  will,  I  think,  be  two.  First,  the  exalta- 
tion and  refinement  of  those  affections  and  relation- 
ship, themselves;  and,  second,  the  simplifying  and 
humanizing  of  religion. 

We  all  know  how  the  natural  relations  between 
human  creatures  all  have  their  downward  as  well  as 
their  upward  tendency,  their  animal  as  well  as  their 
spiritual  side.  The  lusts  of  Power  and  Pride  and 
Cruelty  and  Passion  all  come  in  to  make  foul  and 
mean  that  which  ought  to  be  pure  and  high.  What 
is  there  that  can  keep  the  purity  and  loftiness  of 
domestic  life  ?  What  is  there  that  can  preserve  the 
color  and  glory  of  the  family,  like  the  perpetual  con- 


84  Brotherhood  in   Christ. 

sciousness,  running  through  all  the  open  channels  of 
its  life,  that  they  are  being  used  to  convey  the  truth 
and  power  of  God  ?     The  father  who  counts  himself 
one  link    in    the  ever    developing   perpetuation    of 
truth  among  mankind,  handing  on  to  his  children 
what  has  been  already  handed  down  to  him;  the 
brother  who  without  struggle  or  effort  feels  all  that 
he  believes  flowing  through  this  life  into  the  open 
life  of  the  brother  by  his  side;  are  not  these  the  men 
in  whom  brotherhood  and  fatherhood  keep  their  true 
dignity  and  never   grow  base,  jealous,  tawdry   or 
tyrannical  ?     Everything  keeps  its  best  nature  only 
by  being  put  to  its  best  use.     The  relations  of  kin- 
ship are  no  exception  to  this  rule.     It  is  when,  under- 
neath the  pleasant  courtesies  and  intimacies  of  the 
home,  there  is  all  the  time  going  on  a  diffusion  and 
distribution  of  religion,  of  the  highest  motives  and 
the    highest  thoughts  ;  it  is   then   that   the   home 
beams,  even  on  the  surface  of  its  life,  with  its  richest 
beauty. 

And,  as  the  home,  pervaded  by  this  diffusion  of 
religion,  comes  to  its  best  beauty,  so  religion  too  is 
at  its  best,  when  it  is  flowing  through  the  channels 
which  were  made  for  it  to  run  in.  Religion,  we 
know,  is  apt  to  grow  unhuman.  Either  vaguely 
speculative,  or  hardly  dogmatic,  or  fantastically 
formal,  it  loses  the  fulness  and  completeness,  the 
healthiness  and  entire  vitality  which  are  the  con- 
ditions of  its  best  work.  And  the  more  solitary  you 
make  religion,  the  more  it  becomes  in  danger  of  such 
degenerations.     It  is  in  its  contact  with  the  healthy 


Brotherhood  in   Christ. 


relations  of  human  life  that  religion  keeps  its  own  true 
healthiness.  It  is  as  given  from  the  father  to  the  son, 
that  religion  truly  reveals  its  authority  and  benefi- 
cence. It  is  as  passing  from  brother  to  brother,  along 
the  channels  of  their  commonest  intercourse,  that  re- 
ligion loses  its  cloudiness  and  becomes  full  of  sincer- 
ity, honesty  and  common  sense.  Wherever  religion 
deserts  these  primary  and  perpetual  channels  and 
becomes  monastic,  the  brooding  solitary  experience 
-of  single  souls,  transmitting  itself  through  the  arti- 
ficial relationships  of  priest  and  penitent,  instead  of 
through  the  normal  relationships  of  life,  in  every 
such  case  religion  becomes  fantastic  and  diseased.  It 
is  the  tendency  of  the  unnatural  associations  of  man- 
kind to  sacrifice  the  individual  to  the  community. 
It  is  the  privilege  of  the  natural  relationships  of  man, 
at  once  to  secure  social  life  and  to  foster  individual- 
ity. That  is  the  invariable  difference  between  the 
companionship  of  the  cloister  and  the  companionship 
of  the  family.  Keligion,  as  it  flows  through  one, 
grows  complicated  and  unhealthy.  Keligion  flow- 
ing through  the  other,  gains  ever  new  simplicity  and 
health. 

I  know,  my  dear  friends,  well  enough,  that  when  I 
talk  thus  1  am  talking  ideally.  I  am  talking  of  these 
first  relations  of  men  to  one  another  as  they  are  when 
they  are  at  their  best.  They  are  not  always  so.  And 
when  they  fail  of  their  best  it  is  always  true  that 
the  very  quality  in  them  which  made  them  capable 
of  special  good,  makes  them  the  means  of  greatest 
evil.     I  have  spoken  of  the  way  in  which  the  net- 


86  Brotherhood  in  Christ. 

work  of  natural  affection,  stretched  all  over  the  earth, 
may  carry  everywhere  the  truth  and  power  of  Christ. 
But  you  know  well  enough  that  every  channel  which 
is  made  to  carry  good  influence,  may  be  taken  pos- 
session of  by  wickedness  and  made  its  instrument. 
The  pipes  which  were  laid  to  bring  pure  water  into 
the  city  may  bring  in  corruption.  The  veins  which 
ought  to  run  cool  with  the  blood  of  health  may  be 
turned  into  rivers  of  fire  and  fever.  The  great  sys- 
tem of  popular  education  which  ought  to  fill  the  land 
with  sound  learning,  may  be  itself  the  means  by 
which  ignorance  and  error  may  be  carried  into 
countless  homes.  And  so  it  is  with  all  that  other 
system  of  which  I  have  been  speaking.  Through  the 
same  natural  affections  by  which  religion  ought  to  be 
spread  abroad,  it  is  possible  enough  that  infidelity,  and 
vice,  and  worldliness  may  get  a  prevalence  which 
they  could  gain  in  no  other  way.  What  is  it  that 
perpetuates  the  blighting  influence  of  fashion  ? 
What  are  the  channels  through  which  are  spread 
abroad,  all  over  a  community,  the  false  standard  of 
wealth,  the  base  idea  of  manliness  which  poisons 
countless  hearts?  Are  they  not  the  same  God-cre- 
ated channels  through  which  the  holiest  influences 
were  meant  to  flow  ?  "  Simon,  called  Peter,  and  An- 
drew his  brother;  James,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  and 
John  his  brother."  Many  and  many  a  time  their 
brotherhood  is  the  power  of  a  common  curse,  instead 
of  a  common  blessing.  Many  and  many  a  home  there 
is  to-day  where  fatherhood  and  childhood,  brother- 
hood  and   sisterhood,  the   self  same   channels  still 


Brotherhood  in   Christ.  2>j 

through  which  God  meant  that  truth  and  righteous- 
ness should  flow,  are  bearing  pollution  to  innocent 
hearts,  and  temptation  to  weak  hearts,  and  discour- 
agement to  sad  hearts;  pain  instead  of  joy,  hopeless- 
ness  instead  of  hope. 

I  know  all  this.  Who  can  live  in  the  midst  of  this 
network  of  brotherhood  and  not  know  it  ?  But  yet 
all  this  misuse  and  perversion  of  the  principle  only 
makes  the  principle  more  plain.  Every  sight  of  cor- 
ruption running  freely  through  the  channels  which 
connect  life  with  life,  only  shows  how  open  those 
channels  are,  and  makes  an  earnest  man  more 
anxious  to  rescue  them  for  their  best  use. 

"What  shall  we  do  then  ?  W^hat  shall  you  do,  who 
feel  with  every  breath  you  draw  how  other  lives  are 
living  in  open  communication  with  yours,  how  their 
very  life-bloods  flow  together  in  one  common  system  ? 
What  shall  you  do,  who  are  anxious  that  what  is  best 
in  each  should  come  to  all  the  rest;  that  you  should 
be  able  to  give  to  your  brethren  the  faith  which  is 
so  strong  in  your  own  heart,  and  get  from  them  the 
faith  by  which  they  live  ?  What  shall  you  parents 
do,  who  want  to  make  your  children  love  the  Lord 
you  love  ?  What  shall  you  brothers  do,  who  want  to 
make  your  brothers  know  the  truth  you  know  ? 
What  can  you  do  to  make  the  channels  of  your  fam- 
ily life  and  of  your  natural  relationship  to  one  an- 
other, carry  the  influences  which  you  want  to  give, 
and  bring  back  to  you  the  influences  which  you  want 
to  receive  ?  It  is  not  hard  to  tell,  although  it  may  be 
very   hard  to  do.     First,  you  can  try  to  keep   the 


Brotherhood  in  Christ. 


whole  character  of  your  intercourses  fine,  and  pure, 
and  high.  Look  into  countless  families  that  you 
know — perhaps  if  I  dared  I  might  even  bid  some  of 
you  look  into  your  own — and  ask  yourself  whether, 
supposing  some  one  member  of  that  family  to  be  truly 
religious,  the  atmosphere  of  the  home  is  lofty  enough 
and  pure  enough  to  furnish  the  proper  medium  by 
which  that  one  member's  religion  may  freely  pass  in- 
to the  lives  of  all  rest.  Fire  will  leap  through  heated 
air ;  and  the  most  deep  of  all  emotions,  the  most  eager 
of  all  desires,  the  emotion  of  the  love  of  God,  the  de- 
sire to  serve  and  know  Christ,  will  pass  most  readily 
from  heart  to  heart  where  all  emotion  is  pure  and 
lofty,  and  where  all  desire  is  unselfish  and  enthusias- 
tic. But  in  homes  where  all  the  air  is  full  of  selfish- 
ness, where  the  whole  tone  is  sordid,  where  every 
member  is  jealously  watching  that  no  other  gets  ad- 
vantage over  him,  where  brotherhood  means  suspic- 
ion, and  fatherhood  petty  tyranny,  and  childhood 
restless  impatience  to  be  free,  what  chance  is  there 
for  the  divine  fire  of  the  higher  life  to  leap  through  a 
heavy  atmosphere  like  that?  "I  have  been  a  Chris- 
tian all  these  years;  and  look  at  my  children — not 
one  Christian  among  them  all ;"  so  the  perplexed,  dis- 
appointed father  or  mother  talks.  But  when  you  open 
the  door  of  that  household's  history,  you  feel  the  rea- 
son of  the  failure  in  an  instant.  As  the  door  opens 
there  comes  pouring  out  on  you  a  turbid  wrangle  of 
family  quarrels,  or  a  chatter  of  perpetual  frivolity, 
or  perhaps,  what  perhaps  is  worst  of  all,  a  great,  dull, 
heavy  cloud  of  well-fed  stupidity,  and  ignorance,  and 


Brotherhood  in  Christ.  89 

mental  stagnation,  which  is  all  that  family  life  within 
those  walls  has  ever  meant.  Through  such  a  dark- 
ness as  that,  what  wonder  that  the  little  candle-light 
of  the  father's  or  the  mother's  piety,  weak  enough  it- 
self, has  never  had  the  strength  to  pierce.  No !  The 
first  thing  to  be  done,  in  order  that  the  natural  rela- 
tionships may  be  made  the  channel  for  religious  in- 
fluence, is  that  they  should  be  kept  pure  with  unsel- 
fishness, and  open  with  intelligence,  and  fine  with 
sympathy.  Then  when  any  religious  influence  socks 
to  pass  from  life  to  life,  it  will  find  already  built  a 
channel  that  is  worthy  of  it  and  fit  to  carry  it. 

But  there  is  something  more  definite  than  that. 
It  is  a  very  wide  law  and  a  very  beautiful  one,  that 
the  best  way  to  make  a  thing  fit  for  the  use  for  which 
it  was  first  made  is  to  put  it  to  that  use.  The  best 
way  to  make  the  dusty  trumpet  clear  is  to  blow  mu- 
sic through  it.  The  best  way  to  make  the  sluggish 
mind  capable  of  thinking  is  to  think  with  it.  And 
so  the  best  way  to  make  the  natural  relationships  ca- 
pable of  carrying  religious  influence  is  to  give  them 
religious  influences  to  carry,  so  strong  and  ardent 
that  they  shall  force  and  burn  their  own  way  through 
whatever  artificial  obstructions  may  have  stopped  up 
the  channel  through  which  they  were  meant  to  go. 
Again  I  hear  a  Christian  parent  complaining  that  his 
religion  has  not  told  upon  his  children  to  make  them 
Christians ;  but,  when  I  ask,  I  find  that  there  never  has 
been  one  direct  effort  to  make  it  tell;  never,  in  all  the 
years  while  they  have  lived  together,  one  word  or 
act,  which  definitely  and  specifically,  tried  to  send  the 


90  Brotherhood  in  Christ. 

father's  religion  through  the  open  channel  that  was 
between  them,  from  the  father's  life  into  the  child's. 
Everything  else,  every  other  truth  and  interest  and 
treasure,  has  been  offered  and  urged  over  and  over 
again,  but  not  one  word  or  act  has  ever  urged  or  even 
offered  religion. 

I  know  what  will  be  said  at  once,  and  I  think  I 
understand  it.  I  know  how  often  it  is  hardest  to 
speak  about  the  most  sacred  things  to  those  who  are 
the  nearest  and  the  dearest  to  us.  I  understand 
that  shrinking  which  keeps  the  brother's  lips  closed 
from  urging  on  his  own  brother  the  truth  and  the  per- 
suasion which  he  will  urge  freely  enough  on  any  other 
man.  The  glib  and  ready  Sunday-school  teacher 
goes  from  his  class  to  his  home,  and  in  the  presence 
of  his  own  children  he  is  silent  as  a  stone.  In  that 
phenomenon,  which  is  so  familiar  and  often  so  per- 
plexing, I  think  we  can  see  the  mixture  of  two  feel- 
ings, one  of  which  is  bad,  the  other  good.  The  bad 
feeling  is  the  sense  of  shame  which  comes  when  we 
think  of  pressing  the  love  of  God  and  the  service  of 
Christ  upon  the  minds  and  consciences  of  those  who 
are  always  living  with  us,  and  who  know  what  poor, 
weak,  wicked  and  unfaithful  things  our  own  lives  are. 
The  good  reason  for  our  silence  is  more  subtle. 
It  is,  I  think,  the  feeling  which  comes  to  us  almost 
everywhere,  but  comes  to  us  most  strongly  in 
the  presence  of  those  whose  hearts  lie  nearest  to 
our  own,  that  for  the  conveyance  of  the  most  sacred 
influences  words  are  the  most  clumsy  and  unsatis- 
factory of  means;  that  life  is  the  only  testimony  by 


Brotherhood  in   Christ.  91 

which  the  power  of  Christ  in  one  man's  heart  can 
thoroughly  bear  its  witness  to  the  heart  of  any  other 
man.  It  is  natural  enough  that  this  consciousness 
should  be  most  clear  and  strong  just  where  the  pos- 
sibility of  heart  bearing  direct  testimony  to  heart 
becomes  most  evident,  in  the  home  where  hearts 
ought  to  lie  nearest  and  openest  to  one  another.  I 
know  how  these  two  reasons,  and  perhaps  some 
others,  make  it  very  hard  sometimes  for  the  father 
to  talk  to  his  child,  or  for  the  brother  to  talk  to  his 
brother,  about  the  most  sacred  things.  And  yet  I 
know  how  often  just  one  word  is  needed  to  break 
through  the  obstruction  and  reserve,  and  let  all  the 
wealth  of  God's  grace  which  has  been  gathering  in 
one  humbly  consecrated  heart,  pour  forth  into 
another  which  is  waiting  empty  and  hungry  all  the 
time.  At  least  we  are  all  bound  to  be  sure  that  it  is 
something  nobler  than  mere  pride  or  shame  that  is 
keeping  us  from  saying  to  our  brother  what  may  be 
his  word  of  life. 

But,  after  all,  the  word  is  only  one  method;  the 
simplest,  the  most  immediate,  the  most  natural,  but 
not  the  only  nor  the  richest  method  by  which  men 
send  influence  forth  to  their  brethren.  If,  honestly, 
the  urgent  word  does  not  seem  to  be  the  true  way 
to  reach  the  lives  which  God  has  set  the  closest  to 
our  own,  the  truth  remains  that  he  who  really  seeks 
to  send  abroad  the  Gospel,  and  who  lives  that  Gospel 
in  the  centre  of  some  one  of  the  networks  of  brother- 
hood with  which  God  has  covered  thv  earth,  and 
who   cares   for   other   souls   beside    his   ...wn,    and 


92  Brotherhood  in  Christ. 


is  on  the  watch  for  every  feather  with  which  the 
arrow  of  his  influence  can  possibly  be  winged,  will 
surely  find  the  ways  he  seeks,  however  impossible  it 
is  to  tell  before  what  they  will  be ;  and  cannot  fail  to 
discover  at  last  that  God  has  blessed  through  him 
the  lives  which  are  no  less  dear  to  him  than  his 
own. 

With  that  assurance,  full  of  responsibility  and  full 
also  of  encouraging  hope,  I  leave  the  truth  which  I 
have  tried  to  preach  to  you.  Go  to  your  homes  and 
question  them !  0  Zebedee !  0  mother  of  Zebedee's 
children !  ask  yourselves  whether  your  household  is 
kept  open  by  pure,  refined,  unselfish,  elevated  liv- 
ing, by  a  continual  sense  of  God,  by  ever  present 
prayer,  so  that  the  best  of  light  and  strength  which 
God  has  given  to  any  one  tends  freely  to  become  the 
strength  and  light  of  all.  Why  are  John  and  James 
so  often  not  together  in  the  company  of  Christ? 
What  does  it  mean  that  so  often  Simon  Peter  lingers 
in  darkness,  while  Andrew  is  in  the  full  sunshine  of 
the  Master's  service  ?  Go  home  and  question  your 
household  life  about  these  things,  and  claim  for  your 
home  that  blessing  for  which  God  made  our  homes; 
the  blessing  of  persuasive  grace ;  the  blessing  of  a 
brotherhood  and  sisterhood  in  the  divine  life,  ever 
echoing  and  fulfilling  the  brotherhoods  and  sister- 
hoods which  make  the  richness  and  beauty  of  our 
human  living;  and  ever  picturing  and  anticipating 
the  perfect  brotherhoods  and  sisterhoods  in  the  great 
world-family  of  God. 


SERMON   VI. 

me  mmt  witft  tfte  W*mM  Seel. 

"  And  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman,  and  between 
thy  seed  and  her  seed.  It  shall  bruise  thy  head,  and  thou  shalt 
bruise  his  heel." — Genesis  iii.  15. 

THE  scene  in  the  story  of  which  these  words  are 
written  is  fixed  deep  in  the  imagination  of  man- 
kind. We  read  it  in  our  childhood,  and  it  is  never 
afterwards  forgotten.  As  we  go  on,  seeing  more 
and  more  of  life,  life  and  this  story  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis  become  mutually  commentaries  on  each 
other.  Life  throws  light  on  the  story  and  the  story 
throws  light  on  life. 

Let  us  take  one  passage  from  the  story  now,  and 
try  to  hold  it  in  the  light  of  life  and  see  its  meaning 
brighten  and  deepen.  God  is  represented  as  talking 
to  the  serpent  who  has  been  the  tempter  of  man- 
kind. The  serpent,  the  spirit  of  Evil,  has  forced 
his  way  into  the  human  drama.  He  has  compelled 
the  man  and  woman  to  admit  him  to  their  company. 
He  cannot  now  be  cast  out  by  one  summary  act. 
He  has  come,  and  he  remains.     All  that  takes  place 

in  human  history  takes  place  in  his  presence.     Upon 

93 


94      The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel. 

everything  he  tries  to  exercise  his  influence.  He  is 
everywhere  and  always,  and  always  and  everywhere 
the  same. 

To  this  serpent,  this  spirit  of  evil  in  the  world, 
God  is  speaking.  What  is  it  that  he  says  ?  He 
might  tell  the  monster  that  the  world  belonged  to  him. 
"  Since  man  has  let  you  in,  he  must  abide  the  issue. 
He  is  yours.  There  is  no  help  for  it,  and  you  must 
do  with  him  as  you  will."  On  the  other  hand  he 
might  with  one  sweep  of  his  omnipotence  bid  the 
hateful  reptile  depart.  "  Begone  ;  for  man  belongs 
to  me ;  and  even  if  he  has  given  himself  to  you,  you 
can  have  no  power  over  him  at  all,  for  he  is  mine.'* 
The  words  which  are  written  in  our  text  are  different 
from  both  of  these.  What  does  God  say  ?  There 
shall  be  a  long,  terrible  fight  between  man  and  the 
power  of  evil.  The  power  of  evil  shall  haunt  and 
persecute  man,  cripple  him  and  vex  him,  hinder 
him  and  make  him  suffer.  It  shall  bruise  his  heel. 
But  man  shall  ultimately  be  stronger  than  the  power 
of  evil,  and  shall  overcome  it  and  go  forth  victorious, 
though  bruised  and  hurt,  and  needing  recovery  and 
rest.     He  shall  bruise  its  head. 

Is  there  not  in  these  words  which  the  awful  voice 
of  God  is  heard  speaking  at  the  beginning  of 
human  history,  a  most  clear  and  intelligible  pro- 
phecy of  human  life  ?  It  separates  itself  at  once  from 
the  crude  theories  which  men  have  made  on  either 
side.  It  is  not  reckless  pessimism  nor  reckless 
optimism.  It  is  God's  broad,  wise,  long-sighted  pro- 
phecy of  man,  harassed,  distressed  and  wounded  on 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.     95 

the  way,  but  yet  in  spite  of  wounds  and  hindrances 
finally  getting  the  better  of  his  enemy  and  coming 
to  success.  With  that  promise  of  God — promise 
and  warning  together — sounding  in  his  ears,  man 
started  on  the  long  journey  of  existence,  and  has 
come  thus  far  upon  his  way. 

We  want  to  ask  ourselves  how  far  that  prophecy 
has  been  fulfilled,  how  far  it  has  justified  itself  in 
history.  We  grow  all  out  of  patience  with  men's 
crude  and  sweeping  and  unqualified  epitomes  of  life. 
One  man  says  "  It  is  all  good,"  and  will  see  none  of 
the  evil  and  sin  and  misery  which  are  everywhere. 
Another  man  says  "  It  is  all  bad;"  and  for  him  all  the 
brightness  and  graciousness  and  perpetual  progress 
go  for  nothing.  One  man  calls  humanity  a  hopeless 
brute.  Another  man  calls  humanity  a  triumphant 
angel.  God  in  these  words  of  Genesis  says,"  Neither  ! 
but  a  wounded,  bruised,  strong  creature,  not  running 
and  leaping  and  shouting,  often  crawling  and  creep- 
ing in  its  pain,  but  yet  brave,  with  an  inextinguish- 
able certainty  of  ultimate  success,  fighting  a  battle 
which  is  full  of  pain  but  is  not  desperate,  sure  ultimate- 
ly to  set  his  heel  upon  his  adversary's  head."  Cer- 
tainly there  is  a  picture  of  man  there  which,  in  its 
most  general  statement,  corresponds  largely  with  the 
picture  which  history  draws,  and  with  that  which 
our  own  experience  presents.  Let  us  look  a  little 
while  first  at  the  truthfulness  of  the  picture;  then 
at  the  way  in  which  it  comes  to  be  true,  and  then 
at  the  sort  of  life  which  it  will  make  in  men  who 
recognize  its  truth.     The  fact,  the  reason,  and  the 


96      The  Giant  ivith  the  Wounded  Heel. 

consequence.     Those  are  the  natural  divisions  of  airj 
subject.     Let  them  be  the  divisions  of  ours. 

I  look  first  at  the  institutions  which  mankind  has 
formed  for  doing  his  work  in  the  world.  Institutions 
are  nothing  but  colossal  men.  They  are  the  great 
aggregations  of  humanity  for  doing  those  universal 
works  which  it  is  the  interest  not  merely  of  this  man, 
or  of  that  man,  but  of  all  men  to  have  done.  Church 
institutions,  state  institutions,  present  the  workings 
of  human  nature  on  a  large  scale,  and  so  give  excel- 
lent opportunity  to  study  the  fundamental  facts  of  hu- 
man life.  And  when  we  look  at  the  great  institutions 
of  the  world,  what  do  we  see  ?  Everywhere,  whether 
it  be  in  Church  or  state,  essentially  the  same  thing. 
Noble  principles,  vast,  beneficent  agencies,  grad- 
ually conquering  barbarism  and  misery,  making  men 
better,  making  men  happier,  but  always  miserably 
hampered  by  wretched  little  sins  of  administration ; 
stung  in  the  heel  by  the  serpents  of  selfishness,  and 
sordidness,  and  insincerity  and  narrowness.  Civil- 
ization, which  is  simply  the  sum  of  all  the  institu- 
tions which  are  shaped  out  of  the  best  aspirations  of 
mankind — it  is  simply  amazing  when  we  tell  over 
to  ourselves  what  the  powers  are  which  keep  civili- 
zation to-day  from  putting  its  heel  square  and  fair 
upon  the  head  of  barbarism,  and  finishing  it  forever. 
Popular  government  perverted  by  demagogues ;  Com- 
merce degraded  by  the  intrusion  of  fraud;  the  Church 
always  weakened  by  hypocrisy;  Charity  perplexed 
by  the  fear  of  imposture  and  the  dread  of  pauperism. 
Why,  is  not  the  image  of  institutionalism,   embody- 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.    97 


ing  great  principles,  full  of  the  consciousness  of 
great  ideas,  and  yet  hindered  and  halting  everywhere 
through  the  blunders  and  weaknesses  of  its  admin- 
istration— is  it  not  just  the  picture  of  the  giant  with 
the  bruised  heel,  the  great  strong  creature,  limping 
dubiously  along  the  road  over  which  he  ought  to  be 
moving  majestically  to  assured  results  ? 

Look  again  at  society — that  great  mother  and  mis- 
tress of  the  thoughts  and  lives  of  so  many  of  our  old 
and  younger  people.  It  has  its  devotees  and  its  de- 
nouncers. How  few  of  us  have  ever  seriously  set  our- 
selves to  ask  what  is  the  real  value  and  meaning  of  that 
social  life  which  occupies  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
activity  of  civilized  humanity?  In  its  idea  it  is 
beautiful.  Eagerness  to  take  pleasure  in  the  com- 
pany of  fellow-men — eagerness  to  give  pleasure,  by 
whatever  contribution  we  can  make — a  wish  to  share 
with  others  all  their  gifts  and  ours — these  are  most 
true  and  healthy  impulses.  The  society  which  is  in- 
stinct with  these  impulses  is  the  enemy  of  solitude ; 
it  puts  its  foot  on  selfishness ;  it  makes  men  brothers ; 
it  kills  out  morbidness  and  self-conceit.  Society  is 
doing  this — "  What !  our  society  ?"  you  say,  "  this 
false,  and  foolish,  and  corrupt,  and  selfish,  and  frivol- 
ous uproar  which  takes  possession  of  our  city  every 
winter,  and  runs  its  round  of  excitement,  and  jeal- 
ousy, and  dissipation,  until  Lent  sets  in  ?"  Yes,  even 
that !  Sorely  bruised  in  the  heel  it  is,  wounded  and 
crippled  in  a  melancholy  fashion  ;  a  poor  enough 
image  of  that  divine  communion  of  the  children  of 
God,  which  is  the  real  society  of  men  and  women — 


98      The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel. 

but  yet  a  thing  to  be  cured  and  cleansed,  not  to  be 
cast  away,  not  a  thing  for  any  man  to  turn  his  back 
upon  and  be  a  misanthrope,  but  for  all  men  and  wo- 
men to  do  what  they  can  to  rescue  and  to  fill  with 
the  spirit  of  a  nobler  life. 

Then,  think  again  of  learning.  We  have  a  per- 
fect right  to  indulge  our  enthusiasm  over  man  as 
a  studying  and  learning  creature.  Man  seeking  after 
knowledge  is  felt  at  once  to  be  man  using  very  noble 
powers.  It  is  man  doing  the  work  for  which  a  very 
noble  part  of  him  was  made.  We  think  of  the  ready 
and  cheerful  self-sacrifice  of  the  scholars,  great  and 
little,  not  merely  of  those  who  have  been  rewarded 
for  the  surrenders  which  they  made  by  the  applause 
of  a  delighted  world,  but  of  the  scholars  whose  self- 
sacrifice  has  lain  in  obscurity,  who  have  eaten  their 
crusts  in  silence,  and  not  even  recompensed  them- 
selves with  groans.  We  think  of  all  that  man's  un- 
tiring pursuit  of  knowledge  has  attained  ;  of  the 
great  conquests  which  have  been  rescued  out  of  the 
kingdom  of  ignorance.  We  let  our  imagination  run 
forward  and  picture  in  delighted  bewilderment  the 
future  triumphs  of  the  same  divine  audacity,  man's 
brave  determination  to  know  all  that  is  knowable. 
And  then,  while  we  are  glowing  with  this  large  en- 
thusiasm, what  is  this  which  comes  to  interrupt  and 
chill  it  ?  What  are  these  petty  jealousies  and  hates 
of  learned  men  ?  What  is  this  pedantry  ?  What  is 
this  narrowness  which  neglects  and  despises,  and 
even  tries  to  hinder  other  learning  than  its  own? 
Close  on  the   large   ambition    comes  the  miserable 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.     99 


discontent,  the  carping  criticism,  the  discourage- 
ment, the  love  of  darkness.  The  worm  is  in  the 
wood  of  the  brave  ship  that  sails  so  proudly  out  to 
sea.  The  rust  is  on  the  arrow  which  is  sent  flying 
through  the  air.  What  is  the  Poet's  complaint,  that 
"knowledge  comes  but  wisdom  lingers,"  except  a 
declaration  that  here  too  the  full  completeness  of  a 
great  process  is  prevented,  the  serpent  is  stinging  at 
the  heel  which  ultimately  must  be  set  upon  the 
serpent's  head  and  crush  it. 

And  what  shall  we  say  about  religion  ?  The 
future  of  mankind  is  a  religious  future.  It  is  man 
as  religious,  that  is  to  rule  the  world.  What  changes 
of  form  religious  thought  may  undergo,  who  can 
pretend  to  say?  But  that  religion  shall  perish,  none 
of  us  believes.  And  if  religion  continues,  she  must 
reign.  We  cannot  imagine  for  her  a  merely  subor- 
dinate or  passive  life.  She  must  reign,  reign  till  she 
has  put  all  enemies  under  her  feet.  Indeed  I  do  not 
know  how  any  man  can  really  believe  in  religion  to- 
day, who  does  not  believe  in  the  destiny  of  religion  to 
be  the  mistress  of  the  world.  I  cannot  believe  in  God 
without  believing  that  he  is  the  rightful  Lord  of  every- 
thing ;  for  that  is  what  "  God  "  means.  A  God  who 
is  not  rightful  Lord  and  Master,  is  not  God.  We  say 
this  with  entire  certainty,  and  then,  we  look  up  to  see 
religion  conquering  the  world.  We  do  see  what  we 
look  for.  But  we  see  something  else  besides.  How 
the  great  conqueror  is  harassed  and  tormented. 
What  petty  annoyances  and  trouble,  she  is  beset 
with.   Look  at  the  crudeness,  and  the  mercenariness, 


ioo    The  Giant  ipith  the  Wounded  Heel. 

and  mechanicalness  with  which  men,  even  her  own 
friends,  misconceive  her  most  spiritual  truths.  Look 
how  her  theories  break  down  in  human  action. 
Behold  the  hypocrisy,  the  selfishness,  the  bigotry, 
the  fanaticism,  the  untruthfulness,  the  formality, 
the  cowardice,  the  meanness  of  religious  people! 
Wounded  in  the  house  of  her  friends,  is  this  great 
majestic  Being  who  is  some  day  to  rule  and  save  the 
world.  And  outside  of  her  friends,  among  her  en- 
emies, men  insult  her  and  oppose  her  as  if  she  were 
their  worst  foe,  and  not,  what  she  really  is,  their  only 
hope.  The  work  which  she  is  bound  to  do  will  none 
the  less  be  done,  but  it  will  be  done  under  perpetual 
opposition  and  persecution,  done  with  torn  and 
bleeding  hands  and  feet. 

Thus  hurriedly  I  think  over  the  great  powers 
which  are  helping  the  world,  and  everywhere  the 
case  concerning  all  of  them  seems  to  be  the  same. 
All  of  them  are  doing  good  work.  All  of  them  are 
destined  to  ultimate  success.  Of  none  of  them  do 
we  despair.  But  every  one  of  them  is  working 
against  hindrance  and  enmity  and  opposition.  Not 
one  of  them  goes  freely  and  fearlessly  to  its  victory. 
It  is  the  combination  of  these  two  facts  that  gives 
the  color  and  the  tone  to  human  history.  From 
every  century  comes  forth  the  same  report.  Great 
powers,  sure  to  succeed,  yet  ever  hindered  at  their 
work;  never  abandoning  hope,  yet  moving  timidly 
because  they  know,  that  sure  as  their  final  victory 
may  be,  their  immediate  lot  is  wounds  and  insult. 
Is  it  not  exactly  the    old  prophecy.     The  serpent 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.    101 

whose  head  is  ultimately  to  be  crushed,  now  ever 
wounding  the  heel  which  is  finally  to  be  its  destruc- 
tion. Could  any  image  picture  human  history  so 
well  ? 

Turn  now  away  from  this  large  look  across  the 
fields  of  history,  and  think  how  true  the  picture  of 
the  Book  of  Genesis  is  to  our  personal  life.  I  might 
open  the  closed  and  sacred  pages  of  any  man's  ex- 
perience. Here  is  a  man  who  for  his  thirty,  forty, 
fifty  years  has  been  seeking  after  goodness,  trying 
to  conquer  his  passions  and  vices,  and  be  a  really 
good  man.  What  will  he  say  of  his  struggle  as  he 
looks  back  upon  it  ?  Let  him  stand  upon  this  Sunday 
hillock,  a  little  nearer  to  the  sky  perhaps  than  on 
the  week-days ;  let  him  stand  here  and  say  how  life 
looks  to  him  as  his  eye  runs  back.  You  know  the 
hindrances  you  have  met.  Paul's  story  has  been 
your  story.  When  you  would  do  good  evil  was 
present  with  you.  You  never  sprang  most  bravely 
from  the  low  ordinary  level  of  your  living,  that  a 
hand  did  not  seem  to  catch  you  and  draw  you  back. 
You  never  felt  a  new  power  start  up  within  you 
that  a  new  weakness  did  not  start  up  by  its  side. 
Terrible  has  been  this  quickness  of  the  evil  power, 
giving  you  the  awful  sense  of  being  watched  and 
dogged.  Awful  has  grown  this  certainty  that  no 
good  impulse  ever  could  go  straight  and  uninter- 
rupted to  its  victorious  result,  and  yet,  is  it  not  won- 
derful how  you  have  kept  the  assurance  that  good  and 
not  evil  is  the  true  master-power  of  your  life  !  The 
resolution  has  been  broken.     It  has  been  wounded. 


102    The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel. 

It  has  limped  and  halted.  It  has  stood  for  months, 
perhaps  for  years,  in  the  same  place  and  made  no 
progress,  but  it  has  never  died.  There  is  no  man 
here  who  has  not  failed ;  but  is  there  any  man  here 
in  all  this  multitude  who  has  given  up  ?  Not  one  ! 
Every  man  here,  when  he  looks  forward,  means  some 
day  to  enter  into  the  gates  of  salvation,  to  leave  his 
sins  behind  him  and  live  the  life  of  God.  In  such  a 
hope,  in  the  light  of  such  a  resolution  only,  is  life 
tolerable.  Everything  that  hinders  and  delays  that 
resolution  is  an  accident  and  an  intruder.  The  res- 
olution itself  is  the  utterance  of  God's  purpose  for 
the  life. 

I  think  the  same  is  true  about  our  faith.  To  be- 
lieve is  the  true  glory  of  existence.  To  disbelieve  is 
to  give  ourselves  into  the  power  of  death,  and,  just  so 
far,  to  cease  from  living.  And  you  are  living  and 
not  dead.  You  do  believe.  You  are  quite  sure  of 
spiritual  verities.  God  is  a  truth  to  you.  Your  soul 
is  your  true  self.  Christ,  the  spiritual  perfectness  of 
manhood,  the  true  Son  of  God,  is  really  King  of  the 
world.  This  spiritual  faith  you  would  not  part  with 
for  your  life.  It  is  your  only  hope.  You  look  for- 
ward to  the  day  when  it  shall  have  conquered  and 
cast  out  every  doubt  in  you,  and  reign  supreme.  But 
now,  how  doubt  besets  you !  Now,  how  a  denial 
comes  like  its  shadow  on  the  heels  of  every  faith ! 
Who  is  this  man  whom  in  your  loftier  and  more 
hopeful  moments  you  discern,  far  off,  on  some  bright 
distant  day,  entering  into  the  open  portals  of  a  per- 
fect faith,  and  leaving  doubt  dead  outside  the  door 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.    103 

forever?  Is  he  the  victor  of  an  easy  fight?  Does 
he  come  springing  up  the  shining  steps  with  muscles 
only  just  tried  enough  to  feel  themselves  elastic 
from  the  long  struggle  ?  Indeed,  not  so !  The  man 
— yourself — whom  you  see  finally  victorious,  comes 
crawling  to  the  temple  of  entire  faith,  dragging 
after  him  the  wounded  heel  which  Doubt,  for  long 
years  before  at  last  he  died,  stung,  and  stung,  and 
stung  again.  Wonderful  is  that  faith  in  faith,  a 
thing  to  be  thankful  for  to  all  eternity;  wonderful 
is  that  faith  in  faith  by  which  the  soul  dares  to  be 
sure,  even  in  the  very  thick  of  doubt,  that  in  belief, 
and  not  in  unbelief,  is  its  eternal  rest  and  home. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  prophecy  of  Genesis  as  if  it 
referred  to  that  total  seed  of  the  woman  which  is  all 
humanity.  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  does  so  refer. 
But  it  has  also  always  been  considered  to  have  refer- 
ence to  that  special  representative  humanity  which 
was  in  Jesus  Christ.  To  him  it  certainly  applies.  What 
is  the  story  of  that  wondrous  life  which,  centuries 
afterward,  Christ  lived  in  Palestine  ?  It  is  the  story 
of  a  life  wounded  again  and  again  by  an  antagonist 
whom  at  the  last  it  overthrew.  Christ's  victory  was 
perfect  on  the  cross.  There,  finally,  he  conquered  the 
world,  he  conquered  sin.  There  he  went  up  upon  his 
throne,  and  Sin  and  Death  were  under  his  feet. 
But  how  did  he  come  to  that  throne  ?  Behold  him 
staggering,  wounded,  bruised,  beaten,  all  the  way 
from  Pilate's  brutal  judgment  hall  to  Calvary. 
Remember  what  the  years  before  had  been.  All  the 
time  he  had  been  conquering  the  world  and  sin,  and 


104    The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel. 

yet  all  the  time  sin  and  the  world  had  been  appar- 
ently conquering  him.  At  the  tomb  door  of  Beth- 
any, he  stands  and  groans  and  weeps.  Death  has 
cut  deep  into  his  affections.  His  friend  is  dead. 
We  may  well  believe  that  he  hesitates  and  almost 
doubts.  Then  he  lifts  up  his  head  and  cries, 
"  Lazarus,  come  forth  !"  and  as  the  dead  man  comes 
to  life,  is  it  not  true  in  that  moment  that  the  bruised 
heel  of  the  woman  is  set  upon  the  head  of  the  ser- 
pent which  has  bruised  it  ?  Is  not  the  old  prophecy 
of  Genesis,  in  that  moment,  perfectly  fulfilled  ? 

May  I  not  then  rest  here  my  statement  and  asser- 
tion of  the  fact?     Is  it  not  true  that  everywhere  the 
good  is  hampered  and  beset  and  wounded  by  the 
evil  which  it  is  ultimately  to  slay;  true  also  that  the 
good  will  ultimately  slay  the  evil  by  which  it  was 
wounded  and  beset  ?     These  two  facts,  in  their  com- 
bination, make  a  philosophy  of  life  which,  when  one 
has  accepted  it,  colors  each  thought  he  thinks,  each 
act  he  does.     The  two  facts  subtly  blend  their  influ- 
ence in  every  experience.     They  make  impossible 
either    crude   pessimism   or    crude    optimism.      No 
man  can  curse  that  world  in  which  the  best  of  men, 
and  the  best  of  manhood,  is  steadily  moving  onward 
to  the  victory  over  the  serpent.     No  man  can  un- 
qualifiedly praise  the  world  where  that  onward  move- 
ment of  the  best  is  always  being  wounded   and  re- 
tarded by  the  serpent,  over  which  it  is  to  triumph  at 
the  last.     But  surely  it  gives  certainty  to  our  own 
observation  of  the  history  of  man ;  surely  it  gives 
dignity  to  what  has  seemed  to  be  the  mere  accident 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.    105 

of  confusion  in  our  own  lives,  when  we  find  them 
both  prophesied  on  the  first  page  of  the  world's 
Book.  Yes,  that  which  puzzles  you  or  me,  that 
which  so  often  seems  to  make  life  meaningless  and 
cruel,  at  least  it  is  no  chance  and  thoughtlessness 
by  which  it  comes,  for  it  is  written  in  the  very  pro- 
spectus and  prophecy  of  human  life. 

It  would  be  possible,  1  think,  also  to  show  that  it 
is  written,  or  at  least  the  possibility  of  it  is  written 
in  the  very  necessity  of  things.  On  that  I  must  not 
linger.  I  have  dwelt  so  long  upon  the  fact,  that  I 
must  say  but  a  few  words  of  the  cause  and  the  con- 
sequence. 

Of  the  cause  I  may  say  only  this,  that  there  is 
one  conceivable  state  of  things  which  in  its  opera- 
tion must  produce  just  that  phenomenon  which  we 
have  been  studying  at  such  length  this  morning. 
That  state  of  things  is  a  vast  general  purpose  for 
the  best  good  of  mankind,  submitted  for  its  execution 
to  the  wills  of  men.  Granted  a  God  who  means  all 
good  for  his  creatures,  and  who,  as  a  part  of  his 
benevolent  designs  for  them,  calls  their  free  agency  to 
help  in  bringing  about  his  purposes,  and  what  shall 
we  behold  ?  Indubitable  evidences  that  the  good  is 
stronger  than  the  evil  ;  a  great,  slow,  steady  pro- 
gress of  the  good,  forever  gaining  on  the  evil ;  and  all 
the  time  reactions  and  detractions,  rebellions  of  the 
evil  against  its  conquest  by  the  good.  A  stream 
with  grand  majestic  onward  flow,  whose  broad 
strong  bosom  is  not  smooth,  but  flecked  all  over 
with  eddies,  little  twists    and  turns,  in  which  the 


106    The  Giant  with  the  Wou?tded  Heel. 

water  for  a  time  is  running  the  wrong  way.  A  stately 
figure  of  humanity,  slowly  pressing  down  its  heel 
upon  the  serpent's  head,  yet  with  its  face  full  of  dis- 
turbance and  of  pain,  because  the  serpent  on  whose 
"head  the  heel  is  set  is  always  stinging  with  the  very 
venom  of  despair  the  heel  that  crushes  it. 

Tell  me,  my  friends,  if  this  is  what  would  come  if 
there  were  a  great  divine  purpose  in  the  world  ne- 
cessarily submitted  for  its  execution  to  the  will  of 
man:  then,  since  this  has  come,  since  this  is  the  very 
picture  which  our  eyes  behold,  shall  we  not  let  our- 
selves believe  that  the  cause  which  I  have  de- 
scribed does  indeed  lie  behind  this  wonderfully  inte- 
resting, pathetic,  fearful,  hopeful  life  we  live  ?  A 
great  divine  purpose,  dependent  for  its  detailed  ex- 
ecution on  the  will  of  men !  Let  me  believe  that,  and 
then  I  know  what  means  this  ineradicable  hope  and 
this  perpetual  discouragement.  Let  me  know  that, 
and  then  I  understand  both  why  the  good  does  not 
conquer  now,  and  why  the  good  must  conquer  at 
the  last. 

Our  last  question  still  remains.  What  sort  of 
human  life  will  this  world  tend  to  make  in  the 
mean  time,  or  what  will  be  the  truest  and  most  fitting 
life  to  live  in  a  world  such  as  this  which  we  have 
seen  our  world  to  be.  For  man  is  capable  of  many 
lives,  and  is  able  to  answer  to  the  world  in  which  he 
lives  with  its  appropriate  response. 

Two  qualities,  I  think,  must  certainly  appear  in 
the  man  who  has  thoroughly  caught  the  spirit  and 
is  susceptible  to  the  best  influences  of  this  world, 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.    107 

One  quality  I  call  watchful  hope,  and  the  other  1 
call  anxious  charity.  We  need  our  adjectives  as 
well  as  our  nouns  when  we  describe  the  true  temper 
in  which  a  man  must  live.  The  nouns  describe  the 
fundamental  confidence  which  must  arise  from  the 
conviction  of  a  divine  purpose  for  the  life  of  man. 
The  adjectives  depict  the  sense  of  danger  which 
comes  from  the  knowledge  that  this  divine  purpose 
is  committed  for  its  execution  to  the  unstable  wills 
of  men.  Hope  and  charity,  these  must  both  spring 
up  from  the  soul  of  faith.  If  God  has  truly  a  pur- 
pose for  our  lives,  who  dare  be  hopeless  ?  If  God 
has  really  a  purpose  for  our  brother's  life,  who  dare 
despair  of  him  ?  Ah,  we  do  only  half  believe  it. 
Therefore  our  hope  is  such  a  colorless  and  feeble 
thing ;  therefore  our  charity  so  doubts  and  hesitates. 
But  they  are  in  us  still.  They  must  be  in  us  just  in 
proportion  to  our  faith  in  God. 

And  yet  the  hope  must  be  a  watchful  hope,  the 
charity  must  be  an  anxious  charity.  Neither  can 
fling  itself  out  broadcast  and  without  reserve.  Hope 
is  aware  of  danger  ;  charity  is  full  of  fear;  in  this 
world  where  God  has  done  all  God  can,  and  yet 
leaves  the  last  decision  of  his  own  destiny  in  the 
hands  of  man. 

A  watchful  hope !  An  anxious  charity  !  Are  not 
these  very  clear  and  recognizable  qualities  ?  Do 
they  not  make  a  very  clear  and  recognizable  charac- 
ter ?  They  make  a  character  which  has  stamped  the 
life  of  humanity  wherever  it  has  really  known  and 
felt  the  conditions  of  its  life. 


108     The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel. 

One  sometimes  thinks  how  it  would  be  if  to  each 
star  which  floats  in  space  the  life  which  its  inhab- 
itants are  living  should  impart  a  color,  which  other 
stars  might  see  as  they  pass  by  it  in  the  never  rest- 
ing chorus  of  the  planets.  Can  we  not  picture  to 
ourselves  with  what  a  special  hue  the  long  spiritual 
experience  of  the  men  who  live  upon  it  must  have 
clothed  this  earth  of  ours  ?  A  sober  glory,  a  radiance 
of  indescribable  depth  and  richness ;  and  yet  a  cer- 
tain tremulousness  as  of  a  perpetual  fear ;  no  outburst 
of  unquestioning,  unhesitating  splendor,  but  a  re- 
strained effulgence,  hoping  for  more  than  it  dare 
yet  to  claim,  pathetic  with  a  constant,  age-long  dis- 
content. 

Whether  our  sister  stars  discover  it  or  not,  we 
know  it  well;  we  who  live  here  and  see  the  highest 
typical  life  of  man  upon  the  earth.  Do  we  not  know 
how  all  the  best  and  holiest  men  live  in  a  hope  so 
great  that  its  own  greatness  clothes  it  in  a  mystery 
which  is  almost  doubt,  as  the  sun  clothes  itself  in 
sunlight  which  is  almost  a  hiding  of  the  splendor  it 
displays.  We  cannot  describe  it  to  ourselves  or  one 
another,  but  how  well  we  know  it ;  that  watchful  hope 
and  anxious  charity;  that  sober,  earnest,  cheerful, 
and  careful  richness  which  have  filled  the  lives  and 
shone  out  of  the  faces  of  the  best  men  the  world  has 
seen,  and  given  its  profoundest  meaning  to  the  name 
of  Man  ! 

When  we  look  up  to  Christ  and  catch  the  color  of 
His  wondrous  life,  is  there  not  there  the  confirmation 
and  supreme  exemplification  of  all  this  ?     In  him  are 


The  Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel.     109 

watchful  hope  and  anxious  charity  complete.  This 
story  of  his  life  is  no  wild  shout,  flung  forth  out  of 
the  cloudless  sky,  but  a  rich,  solemn,  deep,  beautiful 
music,  wherein  the  sense  of  danger  always  trembles 
and  sways  beneath  the  constancy  of  an  unalterable 
certainty  of  God. 

If  we  are  saved  by  Christ,  it  will  be  into  the  life 
of  Christ  that  we  are  saved,  into  the  inextinguisha- 
ble hope  and  into  the  watchful  fear  together.  Not 
intoxicated  by  the  hope  and  not  discouraged  by  the 
fear,  we  shall  go  on  our  way  expecting  both  parts 
of  the  old  prophecy  to  be  fulfilled  in  us,  as  they  were 
both  fulfilled  in  Him.  Expecting  to  be  stung  and 
bruised  by  the  serpent,  but  sure  ultimately,  if  we  let 
God  give  us  all  His  strength,  to  set  the  bruised  and 
stung  heel  on  the  serpent's  head.  That  life  may  we 
all  have  the  grace  to  live. 


SERMON  VII. 

%\t  $m  of  (&Un  minqM  with  Jit*. 

"And  I  saw  as  it  were  a  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire,  and  them  that 
had  gotten  the  victory  over  the  oeasV  .  .  .  stand  on  the  sea 
of  glass,  having  the  "  harps  of  God." — Revelation  xv.  2. 

WITH  all  the  mysteriousness  of  the  Book  of  the 
Revelation,  one  thing  we  are  sure  of;  that  in 
it  we  have  the  summing  up  of  the  moral  processes  of 
all  time.  There  may  or  may  not  be  a  more  special 
meaning  discoverable  in  its  pictures,  but  this  there 
certainly  is.  Many  people  find  great  pleasure  in 
tracing  out  elaborate  analogies  between  its  pro- 
phecies and  certain  particular  events  in  the  world's 
career.  "  Here,"  they  cry,  pointing  to  some  particu- 
lar event  of  contemporary  history,  "  do  you  not  see 
that  this  is  what  these  chapters  mean  ?" — "  Yes,"  we 
may  generally  answer,  "they  very  possibly  do  mean 
that,  but  they  mean  so  much  besides  that.  They 
mean  that,  and  all  other  events  in  which  the  same 
universal  and  eternal  causes  were  at  work.  These 
special  examples  fall  in  under  them,  but  do  not  cer- 
tainly exhaust  their  application.  They  are  much 
larger  and  include  much  more.  They  take  in  the 
whole  circle  of  great  spiritual  and  moral  principles. 
110 


The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    1 1 1 

In  this  way  I  look  at,  and  shall  ask  you  this  after- 
noon to  study  with  me,  the  verse  which  is  our  text. 
I  take  it  to  represent,  in  a  highly  figurative  way,  the 
result  of  all  moral  contest.  We  may  call  that  our 
subject. 

It  surely  is  no  unimportant  one.  It  is  a  subject 
that  ought  to  touch  all  of  us  very  closely,  to  waken 
our  interest  and  deep  anxiety.  I  am  not  to  speak  to 
you  of  imaginary  or  unreal  conditions,  not  of  un- 
heard of  depths  of  sin,  or  unimagined  heights  of  holy 
rapture,  but  only  of  moral  contest,  of  this  struggle 
with  suffering  and  wickedness,  of  trial,  of  that  state 
which  every  earnest  man  who  is  conscious  of  his  own 
inner  life  at  all  knows  full  well.  What  is  to  be  the 
end  of  it  all  ?  How  is  it  all  coming  out  ?  These  are 
the  questions  for  which  I  find  some  suggestion  of  an 
answer  in  the  pictorial  prophecy  of  St.  John. 

They  who  had  gotten  the  victory  over  the  Beast 
stood  on  a  sea  of  glass,  mingled  with  fire.  What  is 
the  meaning  of  this  imagery  ?  I  confess  that  I  do 
not  pretend  to  know  in  full  what  is  intended  in  the 
Revelation  by  this  term  "  The  Beast."  But  on  the 
principle  which  I  just  stated,  I  think  it  certainly 
means  in  its  largest  sense  the  whole  power  of  evil 
in  all  its  earthly  manifestations  ;  everything  that 
tempts  the  soul  of  man  to  sin  or  tries  his  constancy 
with  suffering.  Others  assert  more  personal  mean- 
ings for  the  name.  One  very  large  school  says  that 
it  means  the  Church  of  Rome ;  another  set  of  com- 
mentators used  to  make  "  the  Beast "  to  be  Napoleon 
the  Third.    Perhaps  the  name  may  well  include  them 


112     The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

both,  in  so  far  as  both  stand  for  badness  and  mischief 
in  the  world ;  but  for  our  present  purpose  at  least, 
it  will  be  well  not  to  meddle  with  any  of  that  sort 
of  partial,  precarious  interpretation,  but  to  hold  what 
certainly  is  true,  that  "  the  Beast,"  in  its  largest  sense, 
means  all  that  is  beastly,  all  that  is  low  and  base  and 
tries  to  drag  down  what  is  high  and  noble;  all  sin 
and  temptation;  and  so  that  "they  who  have  gotten 
the  victory  over  the  Beast,"  are  they  who  have  come 
out  of  sin  holy,  and  out  of  trial  pure,  and  out  of 
much  tribulation  have  entered  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

These  are  to  walk  upon  "  a  sea  of  glass,  mingled 
with  fire."  What  does  that  imagery  mean  ?  The 
sea  of  glass,  the  glassy  sea,  with  its  smooth  transpa- 
rency settled  into  solid  stillness  without  a  ripple  or 
the  possibility  of  a  storm,  calm,  clear,  placid — evident- 
ly that  is  the  type  of  repose,  of  rest,  of  peace.  And 
fire,  with  its  quick,  eager,  searching  nature,  testing 
all  things,  consuming  what  is  evil,  purifying  what 
is  good,  never  resting  a  moment,  never  sparing  pain ; 
fire,  all  through  the  Bible,  is  the  type  of  active  trial 
of  every  sort,  of  struggle.  "  The  fire  shall  try  every 
man's  work  of  what  sort  it  is."  "  The  sea  of  glass," 
then,  "mingled  with  fire,"  is  repose  mingled  with 
struggle.  It  is  peace  and  rest  and  achievement,  with 
the  power  of  trial  and  suffering  yet  alive  and  work- 
ing within  it.  It  is  calmness  still  pervaded  by  the 
discipline  through  which  it  has  been  reached. 

This  is  our  doctrine — the  permanent  value  of  trial 
— that  when  a  man  conquers  his  adversaries  and  his 


The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    1 1 3 


difficulties,  it  is  not  as  if  he  never  had  encountered 
them.  Their  power,  still  kept,  is  in  all  his  future  life. 
They  are  not  only  events  in  his  past  history,  they 
are  elements  in  all  his  present  character.  His  victory 
is  colored  with  the  hard  struggle  that  won  it.  His 
sea  of  glass  is  always  mingled  with  fire,  just  as  this 
peaceful  crust  of  the  earth  on  which  we  live,  with  its 
wheat  fields,  and  vineyards,  and  orchards,  and  flower- 
beds, is  full  still  of  the  power  of  the  convulsion  that 
wrought  it  into  its  present  shape,  of  the  floods  and  vol- 
canoes and  glaciers  which  have  rent  it,  or  drowned  it, 
or  tortured  it.  Just  as  the  whole  fruitful  earth,  deep 
in  its  heart,  is  still  mingled  with  the  ever-burning 
fire  that  is  working  out  its  chemical  fitness  for  its 
work,  just  so  the  life  that  has  been  overturned  and 
overturned  by  the  strong  hand  of  God,  filled  with 
the  deep  revolutionary  forces  of  suffering,  purified 
by  the  strong  fires  of  temptation,  keeps  its  long  dis- 
cipline forever,  roots  in  that  discipline  the  deepest 
growths  of  the  most  sunny  and  luxuriant  spiritual 
life  that  it  is  ever  able  to  attain. 

How  wide  this  doctrine  is.  The  health  of  the 
grown  man  is  something  different  from  the  health 
of  the  little  child,  because  it  has  been  reached  through 
so  many  strains  and  tests  and  dangers.  His  strong 
body  carries  within  it  not  only  the  record,  but  the 
power  of  all  that  it  has  passed  through.  His  bones 
are  strong  by  every  tug  and  wrench  and  burden  they 
have  borne.  His  pulse  beats  even  and  true  with  the 
steady  purposeful  power  which  it  has  learned  from 
many  a  period  of  feverish  excitement.  His  blood 
8 


ii4    The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

flows  cool,  his  eye  is  clear  with  the  simple  and 
healthy  action  which  they  have  gathered  out  of  many 
a  time  of  danger  that  has  come  since  the  rosy  untried 
health  of  babyhood.  He  is  stronger  by  the  accu- 
mulated strength  of  trial.  His  sea  of  glass  is  mingled 
with  fire. 

So  take  the  strong  man  who  has  won  a  large  proper- 
ty through  many  disappointments  and  reverses,  and 
compare  him  with  the  baby  of  fortune  who  has  just 
dropped  by  inheritance  into  money  which  he  never 
earned.  Compare  the  rich  fathers  who  have  made 
the  fortunes  with  the  rich  sons  who  spend  them. 
Is  there  no  keener  and  more  intelligent  sense  of  the 
value  of  money  in  one  than  in  the  other  ?  Sometimes 
indeed  the  sense  is  only  keener  and  not  more  intelli- 
gent. Sometimes  the  father  is  a  miser,  while  the 
son  is  a  pattern  of  judicious  liberality.  These  differ- 
ences are  personal ;  but  always,  either  for  good  or  bad, 
the  old  contest,  the  long,  hard  days  of  patience,  the 
corn-age,  the  perseverance  which  earned  the  fortune 
color  its  whole  possession  and  use.  The  repose  of  old 
age  is  full  of  the  character  that  came  from  the  early 
struggle.     The  sea  of  glass  is  mingled  with  fire. 

Or  shall  we  take  the  man  whose  life  has  known 
bereavement,  who  has  passed  sometime  through 
those  days  and  nights  which  I  may  not  try  to  de- 
scribe to  you,  but  which  come  up  to  so  many  of  you  as 
I  say  the  old  word,  death  ?  Days  and  nights  when  he 
watched  the  slow  untwisting  of  some  silver  cord  on 
which  his  very  life  was  hung,  or  suddenly  felt  the 
golden  bowl  dashed  down  and  broken  of  which   his 


The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    1 1 5 

very  life  had  drank.  The  first  shock  became  dulled. 
The  first  agony  grew  calm.  The  lips  subsided  into 
serenity.  But  was  there  not  something  in  him  that 
made  him  greater  and  purer  and  richer  than  of  old; 
something  that  let  any  one  see  who  watched  the 
change,  that  it  was  "  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
than  never  to  have  loved  at  all."  A  whole  new  qual- 
ity, that  rich  quality  which  the  Bible  calls  by  its 
large  word  "  patience,"  the  power  of  his  trial,  was  in 
his  new  serenity,  until  he  died.  His  sea  of  glass  was 
always  mingled  with  fire. 

So  it  is  with  the  world  ;  so  it  is  with  nations.  A 
people  that  has  fought  for  its  life,  that  has  had  its 
institutions  and  ideas  subjected  to  the  fiery  ordeal, 
can  never  be  again  what  it  has  been.  It  is  not  sim- 
ply older  by  so  many  years,  but  deeper  and  truer  by 
so  much  suffering.  Besides  the  mere  value  which 
men  learn  to  put  into  what  they  have  had  to  fight 
for,  however  worthless  it  may  be  in  itself,  the  nation 
that  has  been  saved  by  struggle,  if  it  has  faith 
enough  to  believe  that  it  was  really  saved  by  strug- 
gle and  not  by  accident,  by  the  strength  of  its  ideas 
and  not  by  the  chance  turning  of  the  weathercock 
of  battle,  must  always,  in  whatever  times  of  peace 
may  follow,  deal  with  its  ideas  with  greater  rever- 
ence for  the  strength  that  has  come  out  of  them  in 
war.  Under  its  safest  security  it  will  always  want 
to  feel  still  the  capacity  for  the  same  vigorous  self- 
defence  if  it  should  ever  again  be  needed.  Thus  its 
sea  of  glass  will  always  be  mingled  with  fire. 

These  are  all  illustrations   of  our  doctrine.     But 


1 1 6    The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

the  trouble  will  be  that,  however  much  we  recog- 
nize the  general  rule,  the  exceptions  to  it,  the  varia- 
tions in  the  effect  of  trial  upon  character,  will  be  so 
numerous  as  to  perplex  us.  We  meet  with  so  many 
people  whose  character  seems  not  to  be  elevated  or 
fired,  but  depressed  and  smothered  by  suffering. 
They  come  out  of  adversity  apparently  with  a  great 
loss  of  what  was  noblest  and  most  attractive  in  them 
before.  Men  who  were  smooth  and  gracious  in 
health,  become  rough  and  peevish  in  sickness.  Men 
who  were  cordial  and  liberal  in  wealth,  turn  proud 
and  reserved  and  close  as  poverty  overtakes  them.  If 
trial  kindles  and  stirs  up  some  sluggish  natures,  on  the 
other  hand  it  quenches  and  subdues  many  vigorous 
and  ardent  hearts  and  sends  them  crushed  and  self- 
distrustful  to  their  graves.  It  seems  sometimes  as 
if  trouble,  trial,  suffering  were  in  the  world  like  the 
old  fabulous  river  in  Epirus  of  which  the  legend  ran 
that  its  wonderful  waters  kindled  every  unlighted 
torch  that  was  dipped  into  them,  and  quenched 
every  torch  that  was  lighted. 

But  however  much  difficulty  this  may  give  us  in 
single  cases,  it  falls  in  well  with  our  general  doctrine. 
For  it  makes  trial  an  absolutely  necessary  element  in 
all  perfected  character.  If  so  much  character  does 
really  go  to  pieces  at  its  first  contact  with  suffering 
and  struggle,  then  all  the  more,  no  matter  how  terri- 
ble the  waste  may  be,  we  see  the  need  of  keeping 
struggle  and  suffering  as  tests  of  character.  We  see 
that  to  sweep  them  away  would  be  both  an  insult 
and  a  cruel  harm  to  the  nature  which  was  meant  to 


The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    1 1 7 

meet  them,  to  crush  and  conquer  and  analyze  them, 
to  assimilate  their  strength  out  of  them  as  a  plant 
assimilates  the  nutriment  out  of  the  hindering  ground 
through  which  it  has  to  fight  its  way  up  into  the 
sunshine,  and  to  grow  strong  by  struggle.  You  may 
just  fling  your  seed  upon  the  surface,  and  it  will 
easily  come  to  a  sort  of  sickly  germination.  It  has 
no  earth  to  fight  its  way  through,  but  then  it  has  no 
earth  to  feed  on,  either ;  and  the  first  of  it  is  almost 
the  last  of  it  too. 

We  cannot  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  change 
which  comes  to  pass  in  a  man's  life  when  he  once 
thoroughly  has  learnt  this  simple  truth.  Disappoint- 
ments of  every  sort,  sorrows,  sufferings,  trials,  strug- 
gles, restlessness  and  dissatisfaction,  false  friends, 
poor  health,  low  tastes  and  standards  all  about  us — 
who  shall  enumerate  the  million  forms,  new  to  each 
man's  new  appreciation,  in  which  life  is  to  each  man 
dark  and  not  bright,  bitter  and  not  sweet  ?  Who 
shall  catalogue  the  troubles  of  human  life  ?  But 
who  shall  tell  the  difference  between  two  men  who 
live  in  different  aspects  of  all  these  things?  Are 
they  intrusions,  accidents,  thwartings  and  disap- 
pointments of  the  will  of  God  ?  Or  are  they  (this  is 
what  our  doctrine  says  they  are)  Messiahs,  things 
sent,  having  like  the  ships  that  sail  to  our  ports  from 
far-off  lands  of  barbarian  richness,  rare  spices  and 
fragrant  oils  and  choice  foods  that  we  cannot  find  at 
home,  whose  foreign  luxuriance  forces  its  odorous 
way  through  the  coarse  and  uncouth  coverings  in 
which  their  wealth  was  packed  away  in  the  savage 


1 1 8    The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

lands  from  which  they  came?  Are  they  prolific 
sources  of  spiritual  culture,  contributing  what  our 
best  happiness  could  not  have  except  from  them,  the 
energy  and  vitality  which  there  is  no  way  of  stirring 
up  in  human  nature  but  by  some  sense  of  danger, 
the  fire  to  mingle  with  the  glass. 

In  sick-rooms,  in  prisons,  in  dreary,  unsympathetic 
homes,  in  stores  where  failure  brooded  like  the  first 
haze  of  a  coming  eastern  storm,  everywhere  where 
men  have  suffered,  to  some  among  the  sufferers  this 
truth  has  come.  They  lifted  their  heads  up  and  were 
strong.  Life  was  a  new  thing  to  them.  They  were 
no  longer  the  victims  of  a  mistaking  chance  or  of  a 
malignant  devil,  but  the  subjects  of  an  educating 
God.  They  no  longer  just  waited  doggedly  for  the 
trouble  to  pass  away.  They  did  not  know  that  it 
ever  would  pass  away.  If  it  ever  did  it  must  go  de- 
spoiled of  its  power.  Whether  it  passed  or  stayed, 
that  was  not  the  point,  but  that  the  strength  that  was 
in  it  should  pass  into  the  sufferer  who  wrestled  with 
it;  that  the  fire  should  not  only  make  the  glass  and 
then  go  out,  leaving  it  cold  and  hard  and  brittle 
The  fire  must  abide  in  the  glass  that  it  has  made, 
giving  it  forever  its  own  warmth  and  life  and  elastic 
toughness.  This  is  the  great  revelation  of  the  per- 
manent value  of  suffering  and  struggle. 

But  some  lives  still  grow  old,  some  men  live 
strongly  and  purely  in  this  world,  you  say,  and  then 
go  safely  and  serenely  up  to  heaven,  who  have  no 
struggle  anywhere,  who  never  know  what  struggle 
is.     What   shall  we  say  of  them  ?     How   are   they 


The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    1 1 9 

ripened  and  saved  ?  How  does  the  fire  get  into  their 
sea  of  glass  ?  Ah,  my  dear  friend,  first  you  must 
find  your  man.  And  you  may  search  all  the  ages 
for  him.  You  may  go  through  the  crowded  streets 
of  heaven,  asking  each  saint  how  he  came  there,  and 
you  will  look  in  vain  everywhere  for  a  man  morally 
and  spiritually  strong,  whose  strength  did  not  come 
to  him  in  struggle.  Will  you  take  the  man  who 
never  had  a  disappointment,  who  never  knew  a  want, 
whose  friends  all  love  him,  whose  health  never  knew 
a  suspicion  of  its  perfectness,  on  whom  every  sun 
shines  and  against  whose  sails  all  winds,  as  if  by 
special  commission,  are  sent  to  blow,  and  who  still  is 
great  and  good  and  true  and  unselfish  and  holy,  as 
happy  in  his  inner  as  in  his  outer  life  ?  Was  there 
no  struggle  there  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  man  has 
never  wrestled  with  his  own  success  and  happiness, 
that  he  has  never  prayed,  and  emphasized  his  prayer 
with  labor,  "In  all  time  of  my  prosperity,  Good 
Lord,  deliver  me  ! — "Deliver  me!" — that  is  the  cry  of 
a  man  in  danger,  of  a  man  with  an  antagonist.  For 
years  that  man  and  his  prosperity  have  been  looking 
each  other  in  the  face  and  grappling  one  another. 
Whether  he  should  rule  it  or  it  should  rule  him,  that 
was  the  question.  He  saw  plenty  of  men  whose 
prosperity  ruled  them,  had  them  for  its  slaves,  bound 
them,  and  drove  them,  and  beat  them,  and  taunted 
them,  mocked  them  with  the  splendid  livery  it  made 
them  wear,  which  was  only  the  symbol  of  their  serv- 
itude to  it-,  that  dreadful  prosperity  of  theirs  which 
they  must  obey,  no  matter  what  it  asked  of  them,  to 


1 20    The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

which  they  must  give  up  soul  and  body.  He  was 
determined  it  should  not  be  so  with  him.  He  wres- 
tled with  his  prosperity  and  mastered  it.  His  soul 
is  not  the  slave  of  his  rich  store  or  of  his  comfortable 
house.  They  are  the  slaves  of  his  soul.  They  must 
minister  to  its  support  and  culture.  He  rules  His, 
and  that  is  a  supremacy  that  was  not  won  with- 
out a  struggle,  than  which  there  is  no  harder  on  the 
earth. 

So  that  even  here  there  is  no  exception.  There  is 
no  exception  anywhere.  Every  true  strength  is 
gained  in  struggle.  Every  poor  soul  that  the 
Lord  heals  and  frees  goes  up  the  street  like  the  man 
at  Capernaum,  carrying  its  bed  upon  its  back,  the 
trophy  of  its  conquered  palsy.  There  are  no  glassy 
seas  which  will  really  bear  the  weight  of  strong 
men  but  those  that  have  the  fiery  mingling.  All 
others  are  counterfeits,  and  crack  or  break. 

There  are  several  special  applications  of  our  doc- 
trine to  the  Christian  life,  which  it  is  interesting  to 
observe. 

I.  It  touches  all  the  variations  of  Christian  feeling. 
In  almost  every  Christian's  experience  comes  times 
of  despondency  and  gloom,  when  there  seems  to  be 
a  depletion  of  the  spiritual  life,  when  the  fountains 
that  used  to  burst  and  sing  with  water  are  grown 
dry;  when  love  is  loveless,  and  hope  hopeless,  and 
enthusiasm  so  utterly  dead  and  buried  that  it  is 
hard  for  us  to  believe  that  it  ever  lived.  At  such 
times  there  is  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  hold  with 
eager  hands  to  the  bare  rocky  truths  of  our  relig- 


The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    1 2 1 

ion  as  a  shipwrecked  man  hangs  to  a  strong  ragged 
cliff  when  the  great  retiring  wave  and  all  the  little 
eddies  all  together  are  trying  to  sweep  him  back 
into  the  deep.  The  rough  rock  tears  his  hands,  but 
still  he  clings  to  it.  And  so  the  bold  bare  truths  of 
God  and  Christ,  of  responsibility  and  eternity,  un- 
clothed for  the  time  of  all  the  dearness  that  they 
used  to  have,  how  sometimes  we  have  just  to  clutch 
and  hold  fast  by  them  in  our  darkness  to  keep  from 
being  swept  off  into  recklessness  and  despair.  Then 
when  the  tide  returns,  and  we  can  hold  ourselves 
lightly  where  we  once  had  to  hang  heavily,  when 
faith  grows  easy  and  God  and  Christ  and  responsi- 
bility and  eternity  are  once  more  the  glory  and  de- 
light of  happy  days  and  peaceful  nights,  then  cer. 
tainly  there  is  something  new  in  them,  a  new  color, 
a  new  warmth.  The  soul  has  caught  a  new  idea  of 
God's  love  when  it  has  not  only  been  fed  but  rescued 
by  Him.  The  sheep  has  a  new  conception  of  his 
shepherd's  care  when  he  has  not  merely  been  made 
"to  lie  down  in  green  pastures,"  but  also  has  heard 
the  voice  of  him  who  had  left  the  ninety  and  nine 
in  the  wilderness  and  gone  after  that  which  had 
wandered  astray  until  he  found  it.  The  weakness 
of  our  own  nature  and  the  strength  of  that  on  which 
we  rely :  danger  and  its  correlative,  duty ;  watchful- 
ness, and  its  great  privilege,  trust,  come  in  together, 
and  are  the  new  life  of  the  soul,  the  active  power  in 
its  restored  peace,  the  fire  in  its  glassy  sea. 

The  same  applies   to   doubt   and    belief.     "  Why 
do  things  seem  so  hard  to  me  ?"  you  say ;  "  why  does 


122    The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

every  conceivable  objection  and  difficulty  start  up 
in  a  moment,  just  as  soon  as  I  attempt  to  lay  hold 
upon  the  Christian's  faith  ?  Why  is  it  so  easy  for 
these  others  to  believe,  so  hard  for  me  ?"  One  can- 
not answer  certainly  until  he  knows  you  better. 
There  is  a  willful  and  an  unwilling  unbelief.  If  it  is 
willful  unbelief,  the  fault  is  yours.  Man  must  not 
certainly  complain  that  the  sun  does  not  shine  on 
him,  because  he  shuts  his  eyes.  But  if  it  is 
unwilling  unbelief;  if  you  really  want  the  truth ;  if 
you  are  not  afraid  to  submit  to  it  as  soon  as  you 
shall  see  it,  and  it  is  something  in  your  constitution, 
or  in  your  circumstances,  or  in  the  side  of  Christian 
truth  that  has  been  held  out  to  you  that  makes  it 
more  difficult  for  you  to  grasp  it  than  your  neighbor; 
then  you  are  not  to  be  pitied.  You  have  a  higher 
chance  than  he.  To  climb  the  mountain  on  its 
hardest  side,  where  its  rough  granite  ribs  press 
out  most  ruggedly  to  make  your  climbing  difficult, 
where  you  must  skirt  round  chasms  and  clam- 
ber down  and  up  ravines,  all  this  has  its  compen- 
sations. You  know  the  mountain  better  when  you 
reach  its  top.  It  is  a  realler,  a  nobler,  and  so  a 
dearer  thing. 

If  there  be  such  here,  let  me  speak  to  them.  The 
world  has  slowly  learnt  that  Christianity  is  true.  If 
you  learn  slowly,  it  is  only  the  old  way  over 
again.  The  man  who  learns  slowly  learns  com- 
pletely, if  he  learns  at  last  at  all.  If  you  can  only 
keep  on  bravely,  perseveringly,  seeking  the  truth, 
saying  I  must  have  it  or  I  die;  saying  that  till  you 


The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    1 23 

do  die ;  dying  at  last,  if  needs  be,  in  the  search ;  then 
I  declare  not  only  that  somewhere,  here  or  in  some  bet' 
ter  world,  the  truth  shall  come  to  you ;  but  that  when 
it  comes  the  peace  and  the  serenity  of  it  shall  be  made 
vital  with  the  energy  of  your  long  search.  Yours 
shall  be  that  faith  with  which  a  pure,  truth-lov- 
ing soul  may  stand  unashamed  before  the  throne 
of  God,  and  hear  his  work  called  "  Well-done," 
and  blessed  and  consecrated  to  pei-petual  value. 
You  will  believe  better  even  in  heaven  for  these 
earthly  difficulties  bravely  met.  For  perfect  truth- 
fulness must  find  the  truth  at  last,  or  where  is  God? 
As  we  look  out,  the  applications  of  our  doctrine 
widen  everywhere.  What  is  the  whole  history  of  the 
world  under  the  Gospel  of  forgiveness,  from  its  first 
to  its  last,  but  one  vast  application  of  it.  Here  are 
men  whose  condition  as  perverted,  mistaken,  sinful 
beings  makes  it  absolutely  necessary  that  the  dis- 
pensation that  shall  save  them  must  be  one  not  of  mere 
culture  and  development  but  of  rescue  and  repentance. 
Let  the  great  future  of  those  men  be  what  it  will ; 
let  the  sublimest  regions  of  calm  unbroken  holiness 
be  reached  in  some  celestial  sphere;  let  truth  and 
godliness  become  the  atmosphere  and  the  uncon- 
scious life-blood  of  the  perfected  man,  still  the 
perfected  man  must  carry  somewhere  in  the  nature 
which  holds  high  converse  with  the  angels  and 
worships  with  affectionate  awe  close  to  the  throne  of 
God,  the  story  of  its  sin  and  its  escape.  Eedeemed, 
its  great  redemption  must  forever  be  the  shaping 
and  the  coloring   element   of   all   its   glorious   life. 


124     The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

"  Worthy  is  He  who  hath  redeemed  us  " — that  song 
the  purest  lips  and  the  most  exalted  heart  never  will 
outgrow. 

Simon  Peter  is  forgiven,  re-adopted,  becomes  the 
preacher  of  the  first  sermon,  the  converter  of 
the  first  Gentiles,  the  founder  of  churches,  the 
writer  of  epistles,  the  champion  of  faith  ;  but  he 
is  always,  to  the  last,  the  same  Simon  Peter  who 
denied  his  Master  and  struggled  with  himself  in  all 
the  bitterness  of  tears,  upon  the  crucifixion  night. 
Paul  mounts  up  to  the  third  heaven,  hears  wonder- 
ful voices,  sees  unutterable  things,  can  give  in  bold 
humility  the  autobiography  of  the  eleventh  chapter 
to  the  Corinthians,  but  he  never  ceases  to  be  the 
Paul  who  stood  by  at  the  stoning  of  Stephen,  and 
had  his  great  darkness  rent  asunder  by  the  bright 
light  that  he  saw  upon  the  road  from  Jerusalem  to 
Damascus.  You  and  I,  brethren,  come  by  Christ's 
grace  into  sweet  communion  with  God,  but  the 
power  of  our  conversion — does  it  ever  leave  as  ? 
Are  not  we  prodigals  still,  with  the  best  robe  and  the 
ring  and  the  shoes  upon  us,  and  the  fatted  calf  before 
us  in  our  father's  house,  conscious  always  that  our  fil- 
ial love  is  full  of  the  strength  of  hard  repentance  which 
first  made  us  turn  our  faces  homeward  from  among 
the  swine  ?  And  so  the  saved  world  never  can  forget 
that  it  was  once  the  lost  world.  All  of  a  history 
such  as  its  has  been  accumulates,  and  none  of  it  is 
lost.  It  will  forever  shine  with  a  peculiar  light, 
sing  a  psalm  among  its  fellows  that  shall  be  all  its 
own.     The  redeemed  world — all  the  strong  vitality 


The  Sea-  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire.    125 

which  that  name  records,  will  be  the  fire  that  will 
mingle  with  the  glassy  serenity  of  its  obedient  and 
rescued  life. 

Here  then  we  have  the  picture  of  the  everlasting 
life.  What  will  heaven  be  ?  What  will  be  the  sub- 
stance on  which  they  shall  stand  who  worship  God 
and  praise  him  in  the  ages  of  eternity  ?  I  find  man- 
ifold fitness  in  the  answer  that  tells  us  that  it  shah 
be  a  "  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire."  Is  it  not  a 
most  graphic  picture  of  that  experience  of  rest 
always  pervaded  with  activity ;  of  calm,  transparent 
contemplation,  always  pervaded  and  kept  alive  by 
eager  work  and  service,  which  is  our  highest  and  most 
Christian  hope  of  heaven  ?  Let  us  be  sure  that  our 
expectations  regarding  heaven  are  scriptural  and 
true.  Heaven  will  not  be  pure  stagnation,  not  idle- 
ness, not  any  mere  luxurious  dreaming  over  the  spirit- 
ual repose  that  has  been  safely  and  forever  won  ;  but 
active,  tireless,  earnest  work ;  fresh,  live  enthusiasm 
for  the  high  labors  which  eternity  will  offer.  These 
vivid  inspirations  will  play  through  our  deep  repose 
and  make  it  more  mighty  in  the  service  of  God  than 
any  feverish  and  unsatisfied  toil  of  earth  has  ever 
been.     The  sea  of  glass  will  be  mingled  with  fire. 

Here  too  we  have  the  type  and  standard  of  that 
heavenliness  of  character  which  ought  to  be  ripening 
in  all  of  us  now,  as  we  are  getting  ready  for  that 
spiritual  life.  As  men  by  the  grace  of  God  gra- 
dually win  the  "  victory  over  the  beast,"  they  begin 
already  to  walk  upon  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with 
fire.     Let  this  be  the  lesson  with  which  we  close  our 


126    The  Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. 

thoughts  upon  our  text.  Surely,  dear  friends,  there 
is  a  very  high  and  happy  life  conceivable,  which  very 
few  of  us  attain,  and  yet  which  our  religion  most  evi- 
dently intends  for  all  of  us.  Calm  and  yet  active, 
peaceful  and  yet  thoroughly  alive,  resting  always 
completely  upon  truth,  but  never  sleeping  on  it  for  a 
moment,  working  always  intensely,  but  serene  and 
certain  of  results,  never  driven  crazy  by  our  work, 
grounded  and  settled,  yet  always  moving  forward  in 
still  but  sure  progress,  always  secure,  yet  always 
alert — glass  mingled  with  fire. 

That  life  which  we  dream  of  in  ourselves  we  see  in 
Jesus.  Where  was  there  ever  gentleness  so  full  of 
energy  ?  What  life  as  still  as  his  was  ever  so  per- 
vaded with  untiring  and  restless  power  ?  Who  ever 
knew  the  purposes  for  which  he  worked  to  be  so  sure, 
and  yet  so  labored  for  them  as  if  they  were  uncertain  ? 
Who  ever  believed  his  truths  so  entirely,  and  yet  be- 
lieved them  so  vividly  as  Jesus  ?  Such  perfect  peace 
that  never  grew  listless  for  a  moment;  such  perfect 
activity  that  never  grew  restless  or  excited;  these 
are  the  wonders  of  the  life  of  Him  who  going  up  and 
down  the  rugged  ways  of  Palestine,  was  spiritually 
walking  on  "the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire." 

As  more  and  more  we  get  the  victory  over  the  beast, 
we  too  are  lifted  up  to  walk  where  he  walked.  For 
this  all  trial,  all  suffering,  and  all  struggle  are  sent. 
May  God  grant  us  all  much  of  that  grace  through 
which  we  can  be  "  more  than  conquerors  through  him 
who  loved  us,"  and  so  begin  now  to  "  walk  with  him 
in  white,"  upon  "  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire." 


SERMON    VIII. 

Mt  *§tmt\inl  t&wlt  «ri  tint  $*mjrte. 

"  The  Beautiful  gate  of  the  temple." — Acts  iii.  10. 

PETER  and  John  went  up  to  the  temple  to- 
gether, and  as  they  went  they  passed  through 
"the  gate  of  the  temple  which  is  called  Beautiful." 
This  gate  must  have  been  very  beautiful  indeed.  It 
was  the  outer  gate  of  the  temple,  that  which  opened 
upon  the  temple  area  from  the  broad  and  splendid 
street  which  led  from  the  city  to  the  sacred  place. 
As  the  entering  worshipper  passed  through  this  gate, 
the  glory  of  the  splendid  structure  displayed  itself 
before  him.  He  saw  the  open  courts,  the  vistas  of 
the  galleries,  the  sweep  of  stairs,  the  brilliant  walls 
of  the  temple  of  Herod.  Entering  by  the  Beautiful 
gate,  he  saw  the  whole  in  all  its  beauty.  And  the 
gate  itself  was  worthy  of  the  view  on  which  it 
opened.  It  was  made  entirely  of  the  precious  Corin- 
thian brass,  and  its  workmanship  surpassed  that  of 
every  other  gate  in  all  the  temple.  There  was  a  cer- 
tain satisfied  sense  of  fitness  here.  The  gate  which 
opened  on  the  sublime  and  beautiful  prospect  was 
beautiful  and  sublime  itself.    The  worshipper  entered 

127 


128     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

on  the  glory  of  the  temple  through  a  portal  that  fore- 
told the  coming  glory  by  its  own. 

The  architecture  of  the  old  Jewish  Temple  may 
serve  us  for  a  parable  to-day.  The  truth  that  it  sug- 
gests will  be  the  harmony  between  a  noble  under- 
taking and  a  beautiful  beginning — that  every  true 
temple  ought  to  have  a  beautiful  gate.  The  impor- 
tance of  beginnings  is  the  veriest  common-place  of 
practical  virtue.  That  first  step  which  costs,  we 
know,  cannot  be  too  costly,  if  it  starts  the  enterprise 
aright.  And  when  we  look  at  the  fairest  things  that 
have  been,  or  that  have  been  done  ever  in  the  world, 
we  are  much  struck  by  seeing  how  often  the  en- 
trance has  been  at  least  worthy  of,  and,  alas,  how 
often  it  has  surpassed  with  its  beauty,  the  court  to 
which  it  gave  admission.  The  whole  world  had  its 
beautiful  gate  in  those  days  of  innocence  and  perfect 
happiness  which  passed  in  Eden  before  man's  sin  and 
the  sorrow  that  it  brings  began.  Christianity  com- 
menced its  career  with  the  perfect  Life  of  Jesus,  and 
then  the  simple  beauty  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  to 
which  our  later  eyes  are  ever  looking  back.  So 
every  human  life  starts  in  the  beautiful  mystery  of 
childhood.  So  every  nation  begins  its  career  in  the 
romance  of  some  mythology,  or  the  idealized  memory 
of  some  heroic  man  to  whom  it  owes  its  being.  So 
every  man's  labor  in  his  profession  opens  with  the 
days  of  study  and  theory,  when  the  idea  of  his  pro- 
fession is  beautiful  and  clear  before  him.  So  every 
best  'friendship  and  life-long  love  starts  in  a  glamor 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple.     129 

of  admiration  that  almost  worships  the  image  of  the 
coveted  friend. 

We  might  dwell  upon  several  of  these,  but  let  us 
think  only  of  the  wisdom  and  love  of  God  who  has 
put  the  beauty  of  youth  at  the  entrance  of  every  hu- 
man life.  Through  that  Beautiful  gate  every  man 
comes  into  the  temple.  The  temple  is  beautiful  it- 
self. Life  is  filled  with  joy  and  sacredness.  But  how 
few  lives  are  more  beautiful  than  the  youth  that 
leads  to  them  !  And  how  the  noblest  lives  are  prom- 
ised in  their  youth  by  fair  anticipations  of  their  com- 
ing beauty !  And  then  think  again  that  the  highest 
life  always  is  religious.  The  best  glory  of  the  most 
full  existence  is  in  the  overfilling  of  its  fulness  with 
the  love  and  fear  of  God.  And  that  sets  us  to  asking 
whether  to  the  beautiful  temple  of  a  mature  religious 
life  there  is  also  a  beautiful  gate.  Is  there  such 
a  thing  as  a  child's  religion  worthy  of,  and  ad- 
mitting to,  the  broad  thoughtfulness  and  happy  de- 
votion of  the  mature  religion  of  the  grown  man  and 
woman,  as  there  is  a  child's  body  and  a  child's  mind, 
with  their  own  beauty,  worthy  of  and  introducing  to 
the  physical  and  mental  life  of  later  years  ? 

This  brings  us  to  our  subject.  I  shall  not  ride  the 
parable  to  death.  I  shall  not  weary  you  with  Gates 
and  Temples.  I  only  wanted  by  the  old  passage  in 
the  Book  of  Acts  to  suggest  our  theme.  I  want  to 
speak  of  the  child's  religion.  The  child's  religion,  as 
introductory  to  the  religion  of  maturity,  but  yet  as  a 
distinct  reality  which  has  a  substantial  existence  of 
its  own.     To  surely  is  a  subject  which  has  its  interest 


130     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

for  everybody.  The  parents  who  care  for  their  own 
children,  the  teachers  to  whose  care  the  children  are 
immediately  intrusted,  the  Church  which  has  its  com- 
mission to  all  the  world,  and  evidently  must  not  leave 
the  children  out,  the  lover  of  his  kind  who  looks  for 
its  religious  progress — where  is  the  man  who  can  say 
or  think  that  he  need  have  no  interest  in  the  possibil- 
ity and  character  and  means  of  children's  religion  ? 
Here  are  the  children  all  among  us,  and  yet  we  often 
talk  to  one  another,  as  if  nobody  under  twenty  had 
anything  to  do  with  the  great  things  which  are  of 
such  unspeakable  importance  after  we  have  come  of 
age.  Here  are  the  children  all  among  us,  and  many 
a  time  a  minister  stops  in  his  sermon  and  feels  dis- 
heartened— almost  dismayed — when  he  thinks  how 
he  is  going  on  year  after  year,  saying  almost  never  a 
word  in  church,  to  tell  the  children  that  the  Christ  he 
talks  of  is  not  a  gray  lecturer,  giving  grown  men 
lectures  on  hard  dry  truths,  but  a  kind  friend,  young 
with  the  divine  youth  of  eternity,  and  wanting  them 
to  come  to  him.  Here  are  the  children  among  us,  and 
we  open  our  Sunday-school  and  make  it  bright  for 
them,  and  do  get  very  close  to  them  there  with  the 
love  of  God,  but  all  the  while  we  feel  (and  the  chil- 
dren are  quick  and  sensitive  enough  to  feel  it  too), 
that  the  Church  does  not  more  than  half  know  what 
to  do  with  them;  its  theories  and  machineries  are 
made  for  grown  up  people.  It  wishes  the  children 
would  hurry  and  grow  up,  so  that  it  might  know  how 
to  talk  to,  what  to  do  with,  what  to  make  of  them. 
They  belong  to  the  Church,  and  yet  do  not  belong  to 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple.     131 

it.  Here  are  the  children  all  around  us,  and  yet  we 
have  to  begin  to  speak  of  a  child's  religion  by  saying 
something  about  the  very  possibility  of  such  a  tiling. 
And  the  first  thing  that  we  must  say,  when  we 
are  asked  whether  it  is  possible  for  a  child  to  be 
religious,  must  be  this,  I  think;  that  the  religion  of 
childhood  is  not  only  possible,  but  is  the  normal  type 
of  religion;  is  that  which  Christianity  most  contem- 
plates, and  that  which,  when  Christianity  shall  have 
really  entered  into  her  power,  all  men  shall  accept  as 
the  very  image  and  pattern  of  religion.  We  might 
as  well  ask  whether  a  child's  life  is  possible.  The 
child  is  the  embodiment  of  life,  life  in  its  freshness 
and  first  glory.  As  unnatural  and  exceptional  as  is 
the  birth  of  a  man  full-grown — an  Adam  or  an  Eve 
without  a  childhood — to  the  true  idea  of  living,  so 
unnatural  and  exceptional  to  the  true  notion  of  relig- 
ion is  the  thought  of  a  grown  up  man  being  convert- 
ed, beginning  his  religious  life  with  the  stiff  move- 
ments and  faded  affections  of  mature  years.  The 
New  Testament  is  our  book  of  authority ;  but  the 
New  Testament  is  always  leading  men  astray,  be- 
cause they  deal  with  it  unreasonably,  because  they 
do  not  take  into  account  the  times  in  which  it  was 
first  written.  And  so  the  current  idea  of  the 
churches,  which  has  only  just  begun  to  be  dislodged, 
that  adult  conversion  is  the  type  and  intended  rule 
of  Christianity,  comes  largely  from  the  fact  that  the 
first  preachers  of  Christianity  had  of  necessity  to  be 
largely  occupied  with  men  who  had  known  nothing 
of  Christianity  in  their  youth.     Peter  and  Paul  had 


132     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

to  go  to  grown  up  men,  and  ask  them  to  begin  the 
Christian  life.  But  surely  that  was  not  to  be  the 
perpetual  picture  of  Christian  culture.  Christ  was 
too  human  for  that.  God  had  written  through  all 
his  creation,  in  the  interweaving  of  young  life  with 
old,  his  intention  that  one  continuous  culture  should 
run  through  the  whole  scale  of  the  human  creature's 
development.  Christ  had  been  too  evidently  a 
child  ;  the  incarnation  had  too  evidently  taken  all 
of  life  into  its  benediction,  for  the  children  ever  to 
be  wholly  counted  out.  The  great  Erasmus  once 
wrote  a  piece  in  Latin  for  a  boy  to  speak  which  had 
this  last  thought  beautifully  put:  "We  commemo- 
rate," so  he  taught  the  young  declaimer  with  his 
bright  eye  and  his  glowing  face  to  say,  "we  boys 
commemorate  the  boy — pueri  puerum — we  commemo- 
rate our  Master  Jesus,  the  chief  ideal  of  all,  but  yet 
peculiarly  the  chief  of  us — that  is,  of  boys."  The 
evident  design  of  God's  creation,  the  comprehensive 
form  of  the  incarnation,  the  clear  presence  in  child- 
ren of  the  power  of  and  the  need  of  religion,  these 
are  the  forces  which,  in  spite  of  every  tendency  of 
the  grown  people  to  make  children  wait  till  they 
grow  up,  has  always  kept  alive  a  hope,  a  trust,  how- 
ever blind,  that  a  child's  religion  was  a  possible 
reality ;  that  a  child  might  serve  and  love  and  live 
for  God. 

But  even  where  this  has  been  granted,  the  old 
feeling  that  religion  belongs  to  adult  people,  still  has 
power,  and  defeats  the  best  results  of  that  faith  in 
the  religious  possibilities  of  children  which  has  been 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple.     133 

persistently  uttered  in  the  Church's  sacrament  of 
baptism,  and  which  has  in  modern  times  founded  the 
Sunday-school,  and  created  the  vast  religious  litera- 
ture of  childhood.  The  old  feeling  still  is  strong 
enough,  while  it  allows  the  possibility  of  children's 
being  religious,  to  insist  that  their  religion  must  be 
of  the  sort  that  has  taken  shape  for  adults  alone. 
Bead  many  of  the  children's  religious  books,  listen 
to  many  of  the  children's  sermons,  and  you  will 
understand  in  a  moment  why  they  have  not  wrought 
their  fruit  and  filled  our  churches  with  young 
Samuels  and  Timothys  and  Marys.  They  attempt 
to  impose  upon  the  child  the  religion  that  belongs 
to  the  man.  They  take  the  elaborate  self-conscious 
experience  to  which  men  have  been  forced  by  the 
stresses  of  their  life,  and  they  bid  the  children  look 
at  those  experiences  and  imitate  them,  and  so  be 
religious.  The  result  is  that  nine-tenths  of  the 
children  do  not  get  hold  of  religion  at  all,  and  accept 
the  easy  heathenism  to  which  they  seem  consigned; 
while  the  other  tenth  get  hold  of  it  only  too 
much,  and  are  the  self-conscious  little  saints,  the 
priggish  and  pedantic  Christians  whom  it  is  so  sad  to 
see  and  so  easy  to  caricature.  So  it  comes  about 
that,  though  it  is  the  type  of  truest  Christianity,  a 
really  healthy  Christian  life  in  a  child  is  a  rare  sight. 
There  have  been  some  men,  of  whom  one  can  hardly 
express  himself  too  strongly,  who  have  gone  through 
the  country  preaching  what  they  call  children's  revi-  , 
vals,  taking  that  type  of  the  beginning  of  a  new  life 
which  belongs  to  thieves  and  murderers,  and  gray 


134     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

old  reprobates,  who  by  the  grace  of  God  are  casting 
off  the  vices  of  a  horrible  lifetime,  and  repenting  of 
the  most  brutal  sins — an  experience  full  of  convul- 
sion and  agony,  who  try  only  too  successfully  to 
create  a  counterfeit  of  that  experience  in  the  child- 
ren whom  they  want  to  convert.  It  is  a  real  dis- 
belief in  the  reality  of  a  child's  religion,  and  so  an 
attempt  to  make  the  child  assume  the  man's.  It  is 
the  modern  echo  of  that  medieval  marvel  which  was 
called  the  children's  crusade,  when  their  leaders  took 
the  children  of  Europe  and  led  them  as  their  fathers 
were  going  to  the  conquest  of  Jerusalem,  and  wasted 
their  little  lives  by  hundreds  all  along  the  weary 
and  disastrous  way. 

But  even  where  the  sad  extravagance  and  blunder 
of  the  children's  revival  is  not  attempted,  and  could 
not  be  tolerated,  still  I  am  sure  that  we  are  making 
a  corresponding  error  when  we  try  to  force  truth  in 
the  hard  scholastic  shapes  into  which  men  have  cast  it 
on  the  minds  of  the  young.  Every  theologian  must 
own  that  his  theology  is  harder  than  the  New  Testa- 
ment. It  is  the  New  Testament  and  not  his  theolo- 
gy that  he  ought  to  teach  the  child.  The  child's 
mind  is  natural  and  not  artificial.  Our  theological 
systems  are  artificial  and  arbitrary,  not  natural. 
And  the  child,  while  he  can  make  nothing  of  the  bal- 
ancing of  persons  in  the  scholastic  doctrines  of  the 
Trinity,  will  know  quicker  than  you  or  I  the  mean- 
ing of  the  equal  divine  love  of  Father,  Saviour  and 
Spirit.  Though  his  mind  will  make  nothing  of  the 
notion  of  a  scheme  of  an  atonement,  he  will  under- 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple.     135 

stand  wonderfully  that  Jesus  lived  and  died  for  him. 
Though  he  will  cast  off  the  notion  of  an  angry  God, 
wreaking  vengeance  on  his  creatures  forever  and 
forever,  he  will  understand  that  sin  is  dreadful,  and 
must  bring,  of  its  own  essential  nature,  dreadful  con- 
sequences ;  and  that  of  those  consequences  none  but 
he  who  knows  the  measure  of  the  sin  can  see  the 
end.  Who  can  say  what  a  power  children  may  some 
day  have  over  religious  thought,  in  bringing  back 
Christianity,  as  we  long  to  see  it  brought,  from  a 
scheme  of  complicated  and  artificial  arrangements 
to  be  the  free  utterance  of  the  heart  of  God  to 
man  ? 

And  so  we  come  to  this ;  that  while  men  believe 
in  the  possibilities  of  children's  being  religious,  they 
are  largely  failing  to  make  them  so  because  they  are 
offering  them  not  a  child's,  but  a  man's  religion,  men's 
forms  of  truth  and  men's  forms  of  experience.  The 
child  makes  nothing  out  of  either.  The  one  power 
that  he  has  and  longs  to  use  is  the  power  of  personal 
loyalty  and  love.  He  wants  Christ.  When  through 
the  systems  here  and  there  the  personal  Christ  steps 
forth,  the  true  character  of  the  child's  religion  always 
suggests  itself,  as  the  child  runs  to  him. 

I  have  already  said  that  there  was  something  in 
the  Epistles  that  had  worked  to  the  discouragement 
of  children's  piety ;  but  there  is  nothing  of  that  in 
the  Gospels.  The  Gospels  come  after  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, like  spring  after  winter.  There  is  child- life  in 
the  Old  Testament,  but  it  is  crushed  and  buried. 
When  Jesus  appears,  the  children  come  singing  Ho- 


1 36     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple. 

sannas,  and  asking  him  to  bless  them,  as  the  ground 
laughs  with  its  flowers  when  the  sun  gets  high. 

And  then  our  next  question  comes.  If  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  child's  religion,  and  if  men  have 
made  great  mistakes  because  they  did  not  understand 
it,  then,  what  is  it  ?  What  is  the  true  character  of  the 
religion  of  a  child  ?  Certainly,  to  be  sweet  and  real, 
it  must  be  the  possession  by  God  of  the  faculties  and 
qualities  that  belong  especially  to  childhood.  And 
it  is  not  hard  to  enumerate  some  of  those  qualities  at 
least.  The  first  and  most  prominent  of  them  all  is 
the  faculty  of  genuine,  unqualified,  unhesitating  ad- 
miration. The  grown  man  has  to  find  out  his  ideals 
with  difficulty.  The  world  is  tarnished  to  him.  He 
has  to  abstract  himself,  and  it  is  by  a  labored  effort 
that  he  culls  out  from  under  its  stained  and  battered 
surface  the  unseen  and  beautiful  idea  and  promise 
which  is  at  the  heart  of  everything.  But  a  child 
has  no  such  effort.  To  him  the  world  is  beautiful, 
and  he  sees  everything  easily  in  its  perfection. 
While  the  grown  man  is  ready  first  to  criticise,  and 
only  afterwards  to  discover  what  there  is  good  and 
beautiful  in  the  faulty  thing,  the  child  is  struck  first 
with  admiration,  and  only  reluctantly  discovers  that 
what  he  admires  is  not  wholly  good.  Now  this  dif- 
ference surely  must  tell  upon  the  kind  of  religion 
that  we  are  to  look  for  in  the  earlier  and  the  later 
life.  There  is  a  religion  which  finds  the  world  un- 
satisfying, and  so  turns  longingly,  wistfully,  patheti- 
cally, wearily  to  God.  There  is  another  religion  which 
finds  the  world  wondrously  beautiful  and  good,  yet 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple.     137 

always  suggesting  something  more  beautiful  and 
better  than  itself,  and  this  religion  too  turns  to  God, 
but  glowingly,  springingly,  hopefully.  The  first  re- 
ligion starts  from  a  sense  of  sin  and  comes  to  God  for 
forgiveness.  The  second  religion  starts  in  a  thank- 
ful joy,  a  sense  of  promise,  and  comes  to  God  for  ful- 
filment. The  first  starts  with  disgust  at  self,  and  so 
comes  to  love  for  God.  The  second  starts  in  admira- 
tion of  God,  and  so  comes  to  forgetfulness  of  self. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  both  these  religions  meet 
in  the  fullest  religious  experiences ;  but  it  is  evident 
which  of  them  most  naturally  belongs  to  the  exper- 
ience of  a  child.  You  cannot  teach  a  child  that  ha- 
tred of  himself,  you  cannot  fill  him  with  that  sense 
of  sin  that  sends  the  worn  and  weary  sinner  with  his 
load  of  sins  staggering  up  to  cast  them  down  before 
the  cross.  The  attempt  to  create  such  experiences 
in  children  either  kills  them  with  morbid  misery  or 
makes  them  dreadful  little  hypocrites.  But  this 
power  of  admiration  in  the  child  promises  its  own 
religion,  of  its  own  natural  kind.  His  are  the  years 
in  which  one  can  really  believe  in  ideals.  God  can 
stand  out  before  him,  awful,  yet  dear;  for  to  the 
child  to  whom  all  is  mysterious,  nearness  and  awful- 
ness  do  not  destroy  one  another  as  they  do  to  us  old- 
er folk.  No  doubt  of  God's  faithfulness,  no  question- 
ing of  His  ways  comes  in  to  cloud  the  perfectly  un- 
spotted adoration.  How  good  it  is  that  there  are 
years  at  the  beginning  of  every  life  when  it  is  the 
most  easy  thing  to  believe  in  an  absolute  right  and 
goodness.     How  strange  it  is  that   we  should  not 


138     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

use  those  precious  years  for  the  attainment  of  their 
own  appropriate  and  beautiful  religion.  We  grudge 
children  their  ideals.  There  are  the  much  abused 
Sunday-school  books  which  many  good  people  unite 
to  condemn.  They  are  bad  enough,  many  of  them; 
but  that  which  is  made  the  special  object  of  abuse  in 
them,  that  they  describe  unnaturally  perfect  boys 
and  girls,  is  not  necessarily  a  fault.  If  the  perfect 
children  they  describe  are  only  healthy  and  not 
sickly  in  their  virtue,  they  just  meet  and  cultivate 
that  belief  in  the  possibility  of  perfection  which  is 
instinctive  in  a  child's  heart,  and  which  in  a  man's  is 
so  often,  so  soon,  buried  deep  under  the  accumulated 
conviction  of  the  reality  of  sin.  The  present  tenden- 
cy of  those  who  write  children's  books  is  to  describe 
not  the  perfect  child,  but  children  as  they  are.  The 
old-fashioned  way  was  truer  to  the  child's  idealizing 
nature.  For  the  first  feature  of  a  child's  religion  will 
be  this,  which  we  cannot  ignore,  that  a  child  will 
come  to  God  far  oftener  and  far  closer  from  love  of 
the  good  than  from  hatred  of  the  evil. 

And  then  another  thing  in  a  child's  religion  is  the 
perfect  healthiness  of  his  traditionalism,  of  his  be- 
longing to  a  certain  sect  and  holding  to  certain 
opinions.  So  many  grown  people  seem  to  have 
mixed  up  as  much  of  evil  as  of  good  in  their  adher- 
ence to  the  faith  of  their  fathers.  They  cling  to  it 
controversially.  Their  love  for  it  is  mixed  up  with 
jealousy  and  spite  and  pride.  A  child  knows  nothing 
of  all  that.  His  denomination,  his  creed,  is  like  his 
nation,  or  his  home.     It  is  his  because  he  was  born 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple.     139 

there.  It  is  dear  to  him  with  the  unquestioning  sense 
that  he  belongs  to  it  and  it  to  him.  Alas,  that  our 
sectarian  lines  are  drawn  so  narrow  that  very  often 
a  child  cannot  keep  this  simple  home  feeling  as  he 
grows  up ;  alas,  that  so  often  as  the  child  goes  on  to 
develope  his  own  appropriate  type  of  Christian  faith 
and  feeling,  he  finds  that  the  sect  in  which  he  was 
born  will  not  hold  his  special  aspect  of  the  truth,  and 
so  has  to  go  abroad  and  break  the  ties  of  earliest 
sympathy  in  order  to  be  the  Christian  that  the  Lord 
meant  him  to  be.  Alas,  that  we  are  all  such  secta- 
rians, whatever  we  may  call  ourselves,  and  that  the 
great  idea  of  a  whole  Christian  Church  is  as  yet  so 
little  realized.  But  these  are  troubles  which  the 
man  grows  into.  The  child  may  freely  glory  in  his 
own  Church,  and  yet  be  no  sectarian;  may  accept 
his  creed  from  the  lips  of  others,  and  yet  be  no  dog- 
matist. And  so  a  second  feature  in  the  child's  relig- 
ion will  be  this — a  healthy  traditionalism,  a  warm, 
true  love  for  the  Church  he  is  brought  up  in ;  not  an 
abstract  and  general,  but  a  clear,  localized  religion. 
The  true  parent,  the  true  teacher,  will  try  not  mere- 
ly to  make  the  child  love  God,  but  to  make  him  love 
his  own  church,  as  the  place  where  he  knows  God, 
and  where  he  finds  God  always. 

And  then  again,  as  a  child  is  able  to  love  his  own 
church  without  any  of  the  evil  effects  of  sectarianism, 
so  he  is  able  to  love  the  organizations  and  habits  of 
the  Church,  without  the  evil  effects  of  formalism. 
The  child's  nature  is  poetic.  This  is  seen  in  the  ease 
with  which  it  feels  the  symbolic  character  of  sym- 


140     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

bolic  things.  Its  symbols  are  real  symbols;  they 
really  stand  for  something  besides  themselves,  some- 
thing unseen.  Now  formalism  comes  largely  from 
the  sheer  loss  of  the  poetic  sense.  The  stupidity  of 
ritualism  is  the  prosaic  way  in  which  its  symbols 
have  lost  their  meaning,  and  become  valuable  in 
and  for  themselves.  This  is  the  way  in  which  many 
people  make  a  Fetish  of  the  Church.  The  Church  is 
the  most  poetic  of  all  things,  so  long  as  men  see  her 
with  poetic  eyes,  so  long  as  her  outward  shows 
stand  for  spiritual  truths ;  but  there  never  was  any- 
thing so  wretchedly  prosaic  as  the  outward  shows 
and  ways  of  the  Church,  her  visible  sacraments  and 
tactual  successions,  when  they  have  ceased  to  be 
merely  representative  of  spiritual  verities  and  are 
valued  for  themselves.  Now,  is  it  saying  too  much 
to  claim  that  a  child  with  his  nature  full  of  poetry  is 
able  to  take  and  use  the  ceremonies  and  external 
things  of  the  Church  and  keep  their  meaning,  as  many 
men  cannot  ?  He  needs  them.  It  is  all  very  well  for 
you  to  say  that  you  can  worship  without  a  liturgy, 
and  without  the  company  of  a  congregation.  You 
think  you  can.  You  have  faith  in  your  power  for 
abstracted  and  solitary  devotion ;  but  it  is  not  right 
for  you  to  assume  that  your  child  can  do  it.  This 
is  why,  as  I  think,  all  the  children  of  a  parish  such 
as  this,  even  those  who  are  best  taught  at  home,  ought 
to  be  gathered  into  the  parish  Sunday  School,  which 
for  many  purposes  is  their  church.  Apart  from 
what  they  learn  there,  it  brings  them  into  a  true 
conscious  partnership  in  the   church    and  its  work- 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple.     141 

ings,  makes  itself  their  church,  fills  them  with  its 
spirit,  lets  them  understand  its  life,  and  look  on  it  as 
their  home.  This  is  why  I  wish  all  the  children  of 
our  church  were  there. 

Only  one  thing  more  let  me  say  about  the  charac- 
ter of  the  child's  religion.  Is  it  not  true  that  the 
simplest  and  primary  form  of  the  presentation  of  the 
Gospel  is  the  one  which  is  preserved  most  truly  and 
necessarily  in  the  teaching  of  children  ?  The  Gos- 
pel came  first  into  the  world  as  good  news.  It  was 
a  simple,  glorious  story,  told  in  the  purest  and  direct- 
est  way.  It  was  a  message,  a  revelation,  God's  love 
to  man,  God's  pity  and  salvation  for  man,  told  by 
the  roadside  and  the  wellside,  told  in  the  temple 
courts,  told  from  the  cross.  But  how  that  first  con- 
ception of  the  Gospel  gets  blurred  and  lost.  To  us 
grown  men,  the  Gospel  is  a  philosophy  of  life,  a  sys- 
tem to  be  argued  about,  almost  anything  but  a  mes- 
sage coming  right  down  from  God  to  man.  But  the 
child's  nature  is  all  receptive  of  stories,  open  for 
messages  on  every  side.  The  child  is  a  little  Athe- 
nian, always  listening  for  some  new  thing.  All  the 
world  about  him  is  mysterious,  ever  breaking  out 
into  tidings  of  itself.  And  so  the  child  is  ready, 
if  it  can  be  rightly  told  him,  to  hear,  above  all 
the  other  messages  that  come  to  him  out  of  this 
ever  opening  and  surprising  world,  the  best  and 
highest  news  of  all,  the  Gospel,  simply  as  glad  tid- 
ings of  the  love  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  the 
world  by  Jesus. 

I  must  not  mention  more ;    but  put  together  in 


142      The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 


your  own  mind  these  characteristics  of  a  child's  relig- 
ion which  we  have  recounted,  and  see  if  you  have 
not  a  recognizable  and  beautiful  conception  as  their 
lesult.  It  is  no  monstrous  thing.  It  is  no  priggish 
and  unpleasant  aping  of  what  is  possible  only  for 
maturer  life.  It  is  a  true  child  who  loves  God  and 
sees  everything  beautiful  in  Him,  who  loves  the 
Church  and  finds  its  ways  and  forms  full  of  signifi- 
cance and  pleasure,  and  who  hears  and  accepts  as 
part  of  the  story  of  the  world  which  it  is  gradually 
learning  to  know,  the  story  of  how  God  loved  that 
world,  so  that  He  came  into  it  and  lived  here  and 
died  here,  to  help  every  man  to  live  in  holiness  and 
to  save  every  man  when  he  fell  into  sin.  There  is  no 
child  for  whom  that  religion  is  not  possible.  Brave, 
true,  frank,  gentle,  joyous,  what  is  there  better  than 
this  in  the  labored  religion  of  our  later  days  ?  It  is 
not  only  a  promise,  it  is  a  present  reality.  The  boy  is 
not  only  a  little  man,  he  is  a  boy,  with  his  own  pres- 
ent capacity  of  character.  He  is  even  now  "  a  mem- 
ber of  Christ,  a  child  of  God,  and  an  inheritor  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven." 

We  have  said  something  of  the  possibility  and  of 
the  character  of  a  child's  religion.  And  now  we 
want  to  go  on  and  say  a  little  of  the  methods  of  it; 
how  is  it  to  be  created  in  all  its  beauty  in  these  chil- 
dren whom  you  know  ?  Ah,  first  of  all,  let  us  feel  for 
our  comfort  and  humility  that  the  power  to  create  it 
rests  far  back  of  our  feebleness.  They  are  God's 
children.  We  stand  over  the  little  stalk  and  say, 
"  How  shall  I  make  this  flower  grow  ?  "     Think  how 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple.     143 

God  must  listen  to  us  as  we  say  that.  God  who 
made  the  growing  power  of  that  little  flower,  and 
ripened  it  in  the  flora  of  worlds  that  perished  before 
our  history  began.  No  education  can  be  true  or  fruit- 
ful which  forgets  the  perfect  education  of  which  it  is 
but  a  minister.  No  man  can  care  wisely  or  well  for 
any  one  he  loves,  who  dares  forget  that  God  is  caring 
for  that  friend  of  his,  whether  he  be  old  man  or  little 
boy,  with  a  wisdom  and  love  incomprehensible.  I 
cannot  but  think  how  many  families  and  schools  it 
would  at  once  fill  with  happy  earnestness  and  relieve 
of  nervous  anxiousness  to  be  pervaded  with  this  re- 
membrance continually.  So  often  grown  people  here 
pass  out  of  childhood  and  become  incapable  of  deal- 
ing with  children.  But  God  is  always  young  and 
always  sympathises  with  the  children  whom  He 
sends  into  the  world. 

Bear  this  in  mind,  and  then  before  us  opens  the 
work  of  helping  under  God  in  the  training  of  his 
children.  It  is  not  easy.  The  child's  nature  every- 
where shows  its  imperfectness.  It  is  hard  to  open 
it  for  what  it  ought  to  receive,  and  it  is  hard  to  close 
it  against  what  it  ought  to  reject.  It  is  like  the 
beautiful  gate  with  which  we  are  comparing  it,  for 
Josephus  tells  us  about  that  gate,  that  it  took  the 
strength  of  twenty  men  to  open  it  or  close  it.  I  am 
not  going  to  undertake  a  general  treatise  on  the 
Christian  education  of  children.  There  are  only  two 
suggestions  which  I  want  to  make  and  urge  with  all 
the  force  I  can  upon  those  to  whom  the  training  of 
children  is  intrusted. 


144     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

The  first  is  this;  the  absolute  need  of  perfect 
truthfulness  in  children's  religious  training.  Nobody, 
I  think,  can  look  at  the  strange  state  of  religious 
thought  in  this  day,  without  seeing  at  once  the  im- 
portance and  the  difficulty  of  making  truthfulness 
first  and  absolute  when  we  try  to  teach  children  re- 
ligious truth  or  to  excite  them  to  religious  feeling. 
Religious  truth  has  passed  in  many  people's  minds 
into  new  forms.  Men  hold  other  conceptions  than 
they  held  twenty  years  ago.  I  do  not  argue  now 
whether  the  newer  theology  is  more  or  less  true ;  but 
many  an  earnest  thinker  to  whom  the  truth  has 
come  with  a  freshness  and  a  force  to  his  own  soul  in 
some  new  shape,  will  still,  as  he  undertakes  to  teach 
children,  tell  them  not  what  he  believes,  give  them 
not  the  fresh  food  on  which  he  knows  that  his  own 
soul  is  nourished,  but  spread  before  them  traditional 
statements  of  orthodoxy  which  are  ordinarily  reputed 
safer,  but  which  he  himself  really  does  not  believe. 
He  has  not  full  faith  in  his  truth.  He  is  willing  to 
rest  himself,  nay,  he  is  gladly  resting  himself  upon 
it  daily  for  salvation ;  but  when  he  comes  to  teach  the 
children,  he  draws  back,  and  from  a  curious  mixture 
of  timidity  and  care  for  them  and  spiritual  faithless- 
ness, he  puts  before  them  some  dead  husks  instead 
of  the  live  truth  on  which  he  feeds.  Are  there  not 
many  parents  and  teachers  whose  views  of  the  Bible 
as  God's  Book,  of  the  Lord's  Day  as  His  festival,  of 
the  Atonement  as  the  free  expression  of  His  love,  of 
the  Resurrection  of  the  body  and  the  life  in  heaven, 
are  free,  rational,  scriptural  and  vital,  who  will  yet 


The  BeatUiful  Gate  of  the    Temple.     145 


teach  their  children  as  they  were  taught,  in  hard, 
mechanical  and  untrue  statements  of  those  great 
Christian  verities  ?  It  keeps  the  religious  education 
of  our  nurseries  and  Sunday-schools  too  often  behind 
the  best  religious  conviction  of  the  time.  It  is 
not  right.  I  do  not  ask  that  every  crude  speculation 
should  be  immediately  thrust  upon  the  minds  of 
trusting  children,  who  will  take  it  in  all  its  crudeness 
for  a  settled  conviction;  but  I  do  believe  that  he 
who  is  set  to  teach  children  about  God,  should  show 
to  them  the  best  and  fullest  that  the  Lord  has  shown 
to  him,  and  not  another  something  which  he  does 
not  believe,  but  which  for  some  reason  he  has  come 
to  think  is  best  for  them  at  present. 

See  what  are  the  evils  of  such  strange  conduct. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  insincere  in  the  teacher. 
That  is  reason  enough  against  it.  In  the  second 
place,  it  will  be  ineffective,  for  a  man  cannot  teach 
with  his  whole  heart  what  he  only  half-heartedly 
believes.  The  bright  eyes  of  the  children  will  see 
through  him.  And,  in  the  third  place,  it  is  doing 
fearful  wrong  to  the  children's  future,  who  must 
find  out  some  day  that  what  they  have  learned  is 
not  true,  and  so  must  give  it  up ;  and  in  giving  up 
your  feeble  and  false  version  of  it,  will  stand  in  ter- 
rible danger  of  giving  up  the  Christian  religion  alto- 
gether. 

No,  give  the  children  the  best  that  God  has  given 

you.     Teach  them  nothing  that  you  do  not  believe 

they   can   carry   on,  growing   to   them    with   their 

growth,  through  all  this  life,  into  the  life  beyond. 
10 


146     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

There  is  a  difference  between  a  child's  religion  and  a 
man's  religion,  but  remember  always  it  is  not  a 
difference  of  false  and  true.  The  child's  religion 
must  be  like  the  clothes  with  which  the  Israelite 
children  started  out  of  Egypt,  which,  according  to 
the  old  legend,  grew  as  they  grew  till  the  boys  and 
girls  were  men  and  women.  To  have  a  partial  re- 
ligion grow  into  a  perfect  religion,  is  one  of  the  most 
natural  and  healthy  processes  of  human  life.  To 
change  a  false  religion  for  a  true  one  is  the  most 
necessary,  but  most  violent  struggle  of  the  human 
soul. 

There  is  a  class  of  books  and  teachers — the  ordi- 
nary Sunday  School  talker,  is  often  of  that  sort — who, 
it  seems  to  me,  does  very  much,  partly  from  timidity, 
partly  from  laziness,  partly  from  sensationalism,  to 
keep  a  certain  unreality  and  insincerity  in  the  relig- 
ious teaching  of  the  young.  Everywhere  but  in 
religion,  in  history,  in  science,  each  new  and  truer 
view,  as  soon  as  it  is  once  established,  passes  instant- 
ly into  the  school  books  of  the  land.  Am  1  not  right 
in  saying  that  there  are  great  convictions  about 
scripture  and  the  Christian  faith  which  are  heartily 
accepted  by  the  great  mass  of  thinking  Christian 
people  now,  which  are  not  being  taught  to  the 
children  of  to-day  ?  If  that  is  so,  as  I  fear  it  is,  then 
this  new  generation  has  got  to  fight  over  again  the 
battle  that  our  generation  has  fought,  and  fight  it, 
too,  less  hopefully,  because  there  will  have  been  less 
of  sincerity  in  its  education.  It  is  always  a  better  and 
safer  process  to  outgrow  a  doctrine  that  we  have  been 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the    Temple.     147 

sincerely  taught,  than  to  abandon  one  that  had  no  real 
hold  upon  our  teacher's  mind.  In  the  first  case  we 
keep  much  of  the  sincerity,  even  if  we  let  the  doctrine 
go.  In  the  second  case,  when  we  let  go  the  doc- 
trine, there  is  nothing  left.  Is  there  not  here  the 
secret  of  much  of  the  ineffective  religious  teaching 
of  the  young,  of  the  way  they  cast  our  teaching  off 
when  they  grow  up  ?  No  !  my  dear  friends,  all  of  you 
anywhere  who  are  called  to  teach,  with  larger  faith  in 
truth,  with  larger  faith  in  God,  with  wise  love  for 
his  children,  I  beg  you  to  make  truthfulness  the 
first  law  of  your  teaching.  Never  tell  a  child  that 
he  must  believe  what  you  do  not  believe,  nor  teach 
him  that  he  must  go  through  any  experience  which 
you  are  not  sure  is  necessary  to  his  conversion  and 
his  Christian  life. 

And  then  the  other  principle  that  I  wanted  to  re- 
mind you  of,  was  the  necessity  of  a  larger  element  of 
suggestiveness  in  the  best  training  of  a  religious  na- 
ture. A  child  is  not  a  block  of  marble,  to  be  hewn 
out  into  what  you  will.  A  child,  and  especially  a 
child  considered  as  a  religious  being,  is  a  plant  which 
you  are  to  set  into  the  right  soil  of  truth,  and  then 
watch  as  it  developes  its  own  special  nature.  And 
every  child  is  a  separate  and  peculiar  plant,  different 
from  every  other.  What  shall  the  teacher  do  then  ? 
Not  say,  "I  will  make  of  this  child  before  me,  this 
or  that,"  but  "  I  will  quicken  every  activity  with  its 
own  spiritual  stimulus.  I  will  break  off  the  chains 
and  get  every  obstruction  of  sin  and  slothfulness  out 
of  the  way,  and  help  this  child  to  be  what  God  made 


148     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple. 

him  to  be,  whatever  it  is."  A  teacher  who  says  that, 
brings  truth  always  so  fresh  to  each  young  life  that 
it  can  be  eaten  and  turned  into  that  life's  own  forms 
of  action;  not  hard  and  fossilized,  so  that  it  must 
always  be  kept  in  just  the  shape  in  which  it  is  first 
given.  He  will  not  be  surprised  or  disappointed 
when  he  sees  his  pupil  developing  a  type  of  Christian 
life  different  from  his  own.  If  it  is  only  real,  and  pure 
from  all  conceit,  and  truly  full  of  Christ,  he  will  be 
delighted  to  watch  it,  and  rejoice  more  to  have  given 
an  impulse  to  a  movement  which  shall  far  outrun  him- 
self, than  he  ever  could  have  rejoiced  to  train  a  hun- 
dred scholars  into  mere  echoes  and  repetitions  of  his 
imperfect  individuality. 

This  power  of  suggestiveness  runs  everywhere. 
More  is  accomplished  in  this  world  always  by  the 
suggestions  of  motive  and  force  than  by  the  imposi- 
tions of  form  and  rule.  He  who  believes  in  sugges- 
tion has  trust  in  the  vital  powers  of  things.  The 
whole  world  is  waiting  to  start  into  far  higher  action 
than  anything  yet,  if  one  could  only  touch  its  springs. 
This  is  the  beauty,  this  must  be  the  quiet  satisfaction 
of  the  lives  of  those  obscure  and  patient  workers 
who  build  nothing  themselves,  but  who  suggest  the 
need  and  wish  of  building  to  other  minds  greater 
than  theirs.  Think  of  being  the  schoolteacher  of 
Shakespeare,  or  Milton,  or  Pascal;  and  yet  only  a 
few  antiquarians  know  the  name  of  either.  Surely 
there  are  last  that  shall  be  first.  Surely  this  power 
of  suggestiveness  must  always  be  the  teacher's  wisest 
and  best. 


The  Beatttiful  Gate  of  the    Temple.     149 

Let  me  rest  with  these  two  ideas.  You  see  at 
once  how  both  of  them,  truthfulness  and  sugges- 
tiveness,  are  words  of  personal  character.  In  all 
teaching,  but  most  of  all  in  religious  teaching,  the 
personal  nature  of  the  teacher  is  supreme. 

"  I  am  thy  God  that  teacheth  thee,"  Jehovah  said. 
Only  in  deity  are  met  perfectly  those  qualities  that 
make  the  perfect  Being,  "  apt  to  teach."  We  are 
under  teachers  in  God's  school  here.  But  what  a 
light  all  this  throws  upon  that  which  seems  so  ter- 
rible to  us  on  earth,  the  sad  and  awful  mystery  of  a 
child's  death.  What  is  it  when  a  child  dies  ?  It  is 
the  great  head-master  calling  that  child  up  into  his 
own  room,  away  from  all  the  under-teachers,  to  finish 
his  education  under  his  own  eye,  close  at  his  feet. 
The  whole  thought  of  a  child's  growth  and  develop- 
ment in  heaven  instead  of  here  on  earth,  is  one  of  the 
most  exalting  and  bewildering  on  which  the  mind 
can  rest.  Always  the  child  must  be  there.  Always 
there  must  be  something  in  those  who  died  as  child- 
ren to  make  them  different  to  all  eternity  from  those 
who  grew  up  to  be  men  here  among  all  the  tempta- 
tions and  hindrances  of  earth.  There  must  forever  be 
something  in  their  perfect  trust  in  the  Father,  some- 
thing in  the  peculiar  nearness  and  innocent  familiar- 
ity of  their  life  with  Jesus,  something  in  the  sim- 
plicity and  instinctiveness  of  their  relation  to  the 
truth,  something  pure  even  among  all  the  perfect 
purity  which  we  shall  all  have  reached,  something 
wiser  than  the  wisest,  showing  that  even  there  there 
is  a  revelation  that  can  be  given  only  to  the  babes. 


1 50     The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple. 

Something  more  perfectly  triumphant  and  serene  to 
mark  forever  the  perfected  life  of  those  who  never 
sinned,  and  whose  whole  education  has  been  in  the 
full  sunlight  of  their  Father's  presence.     There  will 
be  seen  forever  what  we  have  tried  so  dimly  to  depict 
to-day,  the  possibility  and  beauty  of  a  child's  religion. 
We  hear  much  in  these  days  of  the  precocity  of 
children.     Never  were  they  so  forward.    Never  were 
children  treated  so  like  men  and  women.     Never  did 
they  get  ideas  so  freely  from  the  freest  contact  with 
the  life  about  them.     It  may  be  bad  or  good;  which- 
ever it  be,  it  marks  a  critical  time  and  multiplies  the 
responsibility    of  those   who   in   any   capacity   are 
teachers  now.     Josephus  tells  us  that  once  in  the 
seige  of  Jerusalem  this  golden  gate  which  we  have 
made  the  image  of  childhood,  vastly  heavy  and  hard 
to  move,  "  was  seen  to  be  opened  of  its  own  accord 
about  the  sixth  hour  of  the  night."      And  he  says 
that   some    thought  it  was   a   good  omen,    "as   if 
God   did   open  then   the  gate  of  happiness."     But 
others  thought  it  very  bad,  "  as  if  the  gate  was  open 
to  the  advantage  of  their  enemies."     So  in  this  criti- 
cal time  of  ours,  not  the   least  critical  sign  is  this : 
that  the  golden  gate  stands  open  wide;  that  child- 
hood is  exposed  and   sensitive  to  new  impressions 
and  ideas.     Is  it  for  good  or  evil  ?     Certainly,  not 
necessarily  for  evil,  if  with  a  deep  trust  in  God  and 
a  true  love  for  His  children,  those  to  whom  the  care 
of  the  gate  is  given  can  only  do  their  duty.     The 
wider  open  the  gate  the  better,  if  only  the  truth  can 
be  poured  in.     The  more    receptive  the  children's 


The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the   Temple.     1 5 1 

life  the  better,  if  only  they  who  train  the  children 
can  thoroughly  believe  that  there  is  a  manly  and 
beautiful  religion  of  which  the  child  is  capable,  and 
work  with  God  to  bring  their  children  to  it.  When 
that  conviction  takes  possession  of  the  Church,  then 
the  Church  shall  indeed  have  her  children  in  her 
arms.  Then  Isaiah's  vision  of  the  complete  New 
Jerusalem  shall  be  fulfilled.  "  Thou  shalt  call  thy 
walls  salvation,  and  thy  gates  praise." 


SERMON  IX. 

A     FOREIGN     MISSIONARY     SERMON. 

".4w<?  when  it  was  day  he  called  unto  him  his  disciples,  and  of  them 
he  chose  twelve,  whom  also  he  named  Apostles." — Luke  vi.  13. 

I  WANT  to  speak  to  you  to-day  of  Foreign  Mis- 
sions. I  hope  and  I  believe  that  it  is  not  an  un- 
welcome subject.  It  would  be  very  melancholy,  I 
think,  if  after  all  these  years  in  which  we  have  pon- 
dered and  studied  together  the  Gospel  of  our  Sa- 
viour, and  learnt  in  all  the  changing  experiences  of 
life  something  of  its  precious  value,  we  should  still 
find  our  hearts  grudging  the  single  Sunday  of  the 
year  which  is  given  to  the  special  consideration  of 
our  duty  to  make  the  whole  world  sharer  in  that 
Gospel  which  we  claim  to  love.  Rather  this  Sunday 
ought  to  seem  the  flowering  Sunday  of  the  year. 
To-day  we  ought  to  seem  to  come  into  the  very  heart 
of  the  Gospel.  The  other  Sundays  may  well  seem 
beside  it  to  have  been  lingering  upon  the  borders  of 
our   faith.     To-day  we  come  directly  to  its  centre, 

and,  with  true  confidence  in  both,  claim  our  Saviour 
152 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  153 


for  the  world  and  claim  the  world  for  our  Saviour. 
May  such  a  mind  and  spirit  be  in  us  to-day. 

I  have  turned  for  a  text  to  one  of  the  critical  times 
in  the  life  of  Jesus.     It  was  not  a  time  which  made 
much  noise.     The  act  which  Jesus  did   was   very 
quiet.    It  did  not  come  with  observation.    Only  after- 
wards, as  time  went  on,  did  it  appear  how  important 
the  event  really  was.     But  when  we  look  at  it  to-day 
we  can  see  that  it  marked  the  advance  of  the  whole 
work  of  Jesus,  from  its  first  into  its  second  stage ; 
from  the  condition  of  a  local  school,  into  the  ambi- 
tion of  a  world-wide  religion.     It  is  all  told  in  a  few 
words.    Jesus  "  went  out  into  a  mountain  to  pray,  and 
continued  all  night  in  prayer  to  God.     And  when  it 
was  day  he  called  unto  him  his  disciples,  and  of  them 
he  chose  twelve,  whom  also  he  named  apostles."     It 
was  the  time  when  out  of  the  heart  of  the  disciple- 
ship   came   the   apostleship.     And    what    do    these 
words  mean  ?     Disciple,  of  course,    means   learner. 
The  idea  rests  entirely  between  two   persons,    the 
teacher  and  the  scholar.     It  involves  nothing  but  the 
receiving  of  knowledge  by  some  one  docile  mind. 
But  Apostle  means  missionary.     Its  idea  is  utterance, 
or  sending  forth.     It  sees  and  feels  the  great  wide 
world.     It  looks  out  to  the  very  horizon  of  humanity. 
It  takes  truth  not  as  a  lesson,    but   as  a  message. 
What  the  disciple  has  drunk  into  his  own  satisfied 
soul,  the  apostle  is  to  carry  abroad,  wherever  there 
are  men  to  hear  it. 

When  then  Jesus  turned  his  disciples  into  apostles, 
you  see   what  an  event  it  was.     It  was  really  the 


154  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

flowering  of  that  Gospel  which  he  had  been  pouring 
into  them  through  all  their  discipleship.  The  plant 
fills  itself  with  the  richness  of  the  earth.  No  noise 
is  made.  The  whole  transaction  lies  between  the 
plant  and  the  rich  earth  that  feeds  it  through  its 
open  roots.  All  is  silent,  private,  restricted.  But 
some  day  the  world  looks,  and  lo  !  the  process  has 
burst  open.  Upon  the  long-fed  plant  is  burning  a 
gorgeous  flower  for  the  world  to  see.  The  long  sup- 
ply of  nourishment  has  opened  into  a  great  display 
of  glory.  The  earth  has  sent  its  richness  through 
the  plant  to  enlighten  and  to  bless  the  world.  The 
disciple  has  turned  to  an  apostle. 

Notice,  when  Jesus  took  this  great  step  forward,  he 
did  not  leave  behind  his  old  life  with  his  disciples. 
He  chose  out  of  the  number  of  his  disciples  twelve, 
whom  also  he  named  apostles.  They  were  to  be  dis- 
ciples still.  They  did  not  cease  to  be  learners  when 
he  made  them  missionaries.  The  plant  does  not 
cease  to  feed  itself  out  of  the  ground  when  it  opens  its 
glorious  flowers  for  the  world  to  see.  All  the  more  it 
needs  supply,  now  that  it  has  fulfilled  its  life.  And 
so  this  great  epoch  in  the  Christian  Church  was  an  ad- 
dition, not  a  substitution.  John,  James,  and  Peter, 
were  all  the  more  devout  disciples  of  the  Master,  filled 
themselves  all  the  more  eagerly  with  his  truth  and 
spirit,  after  they  had  become  his  apostles  and  were 
telling  his  truth  to  other  men. 

And  notice  yet  another  thing.  It  is  out  of  the 
very  heart  of  the  discipleship  that  the  apostleship 
proceeds.     It  is  the  very  best,  the  choicest,  as  we  say, 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  155 

of  the  disciples,  that  are  chosen  to  be  apostles.     This 
is  apparent  to  any  one  who  reads  the  story.     Jesus 
calls  all  his  disciples  together,  and  out  of  them  he 
chooses  twelve.     It  is  no  inattentive  idlers  hang- 
ing on  the  outskirts  of  the  group  who  listen  to  him, 
that   he  thinks  good  enough  to  go  and  carry  his 
message.     It  is  they  who  have  listened  to  him  long- 
est, and  most  intelligently,  and  most  lovingly.     It  is 
Simon  and  Andrew  his  brother,  James  and  John, 
Philip  and  Bartholomew,  Matthew  and  Thomas;  it  is 
men  like  these,  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the  dis- 
cipleship  whom  he  selects  and  calls  apostles.     And 
so  it  always  is.     Always  it  is  the  best  of  the  inward 
life  of  anything,  that  which  lies  the  closest  to  its 
heart  and  is  the  fullest  of  its  spirit,  which  flowers  in- 
to the  outward  impulse  which  comes  to  complete  its 
life.     It  is  the  most  truly  thorough  learning  which 
by-and-by  begins   to  be   dissatisfied  with   its   own 
learned  luxury,   and  to  desire  that  all  men  should 
have  the  chance  of  knowledge.     It  is  the  most  true 
refinement  that  believes  in  the  possible  refinement 
even  of  the  coarsest  man.     It  is  most  intelligent  ap- 
preciation of  the  blessings  of  free  government  which 
looks  beyond  the  narrow  walls  of  national  pride  and 
desires  freedom    and  good   government   for  all  the 
world.     I  hold  it  to  be  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
re-assuring  facts  in  all  the  world  that  the  purer  and 
finer  any  good  attainment  grows,  the  more  it  comes 
into  the  necessity  of  expansiveness.     It  is  the  crude 
and  half  formed  phases  of  any  good  growth  which 
are  selfish  and   exclusive.     It  is  the  half  cultivated 


156  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

people  who  guard  their  feeble  culture  by  arbitrary 
lines  of  separation.  The  heart  of  any  good  thing  is 
catholic  and  expansive.  It  claims  for  itself  the 
world.  It  longs  to  give  itself  away,  and  believes  in 
the  capacity  of  all  men  to  receive  it.  This  noble  and 
true  and  beautiful  truth,  whose  illustrations  are  ev- 
erywhere, was  it  not  declared  by  Jesus,  when  out  of 
the  choicest  heart  of  the  group  of  his  disciples,  he 
selected  his  apostles  ? 

Most  deeply  is  this  truth  illustrated  in  the  history 
of  man's  idea  of  God.  It  is  the  purest  and  loftiest 
and  divinest  thought  of  God  that  is  most  generous 
and  world-embracing.  Men  dream  of  gods  that  are 
scarcely  higher  or  better  than  themselves;  gods 
stained  with  passion  and  with  selfishness,  and  those 
gods  do  not  care  for  men.  The  Lotos-eater  pictures 
his  gods  like  himself.  He  sees  them  in  their  selfish 
repose. 

"  On  the  hills  together,  careless  of  mankind. 

For  they  lie  beside  their  nectar,  and  the  holts  are  hurled 

Far  below  them  in  the  valleys,  and  the  clouds  are  lightly  curled 

Round  their  golden  houses,  girdled  with  the  gleamy  world  ; 

Where  they  smile  in  secret,  looking  over  wasted  lands, 

Blight  and  famine,  plague  and  earthquake,  roaring  deeps  and 

fiery  sands, 
Clanging  tights  and  flaming  towns,  and  sinking  ships  and  pray- 
ing hands. 
But  they  smile,  they  find  a  music  centred  in  a  doleful  song 
Steaming  up,  a  lamentation  and  an  ancient  tale  of  wrong, 
Like  a  tale  of  little  meaning,  though  the  words  are  strong." 

So  sing  the  Lotos-eaters;  then  listen  to  Isaiahs 
song  about  his  God:  "  He  saw  that  there  was  no 
man,  and  wondered  that  there  was  no  Intercessor; 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  157 


therefore  His  own  arm  brought  salvation."  By  as  much 
more  as  He  is  purer  and  holier,  by  just  so  much  more 
is  He  larger,  less  able  to  rest  in  His  own  satisfaction, 
more  compelled  to  go  and  help  the  poor  sons  of  men ; 
and  so  it  is  out  of  the  heart  of  the  holiest  conception 
of  deity  that  the  Incarnation  comes. 

Shall  we  not  then  set  down  as  absolutely  funda- 
mental in  our  study  of  the  Christian  Church,  this  re- 
lationship between  the  disciple  life  and  the  apostle 
life,  that  is,  between  the  inward  and  the  outward  im- 
pulse ?  In  the  life  of  every  parish  this  relationship 
ought  to  be  recognized.  The  failure  to  recognize  it 
is  what  makes  so  many  of  our  parishes  very  far  from 
what  they  ought  to  be,  keeps  them  uneasy  with  a 
constant  doubt  of  themselves,  and  a  continual  sense 
that  they  are  suspected  by  the  world  outside.  What 
is  a  church  or  parish  for  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of 
this  little  company  gathered  out  of  a  great  commun- 
ity, which  meets  in  this  building,  for  instance,  stated- 
ly, Sunday  after  Sunday,  year  after  year?  No  doubt 
they  are,  in  the  first  place,  learners,  disciples,  stu- 
dents together  of  the  truth  of  God,  listeners  at  the 
lips  of  the  Master  for  his  revelations.  But  unless  there 
is  continually  issuing  from  the  heart  of  their  disciple- 
ship  a  true  apostleship,  unless  the  best  souls  among 
them  keep  fresh  and  live  the  outward  impulse,  the 
consciousness  that  their  church  and  they  exist  not 
for  themselves  alone  but  for  the  world,  how  their 
church  life  grows  dead. 

Those  of  you  who  have  loved  the  church  longest 
and  most  dearly,  will  bear  me  witness  that  there  is 


158  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

always  an  inward,  self-enclosing  tendency  to  be  re- 
sisted by  every  congregation.  Very  often  the 
more  the  congregation  wakes  up  to  earnest  life, 
this  inward  tendency  asserts  its  strength.  Given 
its  full  sweep,  it  would  make  the  congregation  a 
club,  existing  for  high  ends  indeed,  but  existing 
for  its  own  benefit  alone.  It  would  make  the 
pew  as  exclusive  and  private  a  piece  of  property 
as  the  parlor.  It  would  judge  the  way  in  which 
its  work  was  being  done  by  the  way  in  which  those 
few  selected  people  were  becoming  wiser  and  bet- 
ter men  and  women.  If  it  admitted  outsiders  at 
all,  they  would  come  in  simply  as  spectators  of  that 
process  of  culture  wbich  was  going  on.  It  would  be 
a  church  of  disciples.  It  is  a  constant  effort,  I  say, 
requiring  continual  watchfulness  both  in  minister 
and  people,  to  see  that  an  earnest  church  does  not 
come  to  this,  to  see  that  it  is  kept  apostolic,  with 
the  outward  consciousness  always  alive,  knowing 
that  it  exists  not  for  its  pewholders,  but  for  the  com- 
munity; for  just  as  many  of  the  human  race  as  it 
possibly  can  reach;  knowing  that  its  pewholders 
will  get  the  best  good  out  of  it  the  more  completely 
they  can  feel,  the  more  manifestly  they  can  show,  that 
they  feel  that  it  is  in  no  real  sense  their  church.  It  is 
first  God's  church,  and  then  the  church  of  all  or  any 
of  God's  children.  I  cannot  help  saying  how  truly  I 
believe  that  this  apostolic  consciousness  is  present  in 
this  congregation.  God  grant  it  may  increase  and  deep- 
en till  our  church  shall  never  cease  to  feel,  through 
all  the  satisfaction  of  its  own  life,  the  life  of  every  poor 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  159 

godless  creature  on  the  rich  streets  or  the  wretched 
streets  of  Boston,  as  a  mother  never  loses  the  feeling 
of  her  reprobate  son,  half  round  the  world,  though 
for  the  moment  she  can  do  nothing  for  him. 

But  if  we  look  not  at  a  congregation,  but  at  the 
best  and  most  growing  human  lives,  I  think  that  this 
relationship  between  their  outward  and  their  inward 
tendency  falls  into  a  certain  sort  of  system,  which  is 
continually  repeated.  It  is  a  sort  of  pulse,  which 
we  can  feel  beating  as  we  stand  with  our  finger  on 
the  heart.  Every  life  which  comes  to  its  best  begins 
with  a  sort  of  loose  expansiveness;  it  is  drawn  in- 
ward till  it  reaches  an  almost  selfish  concentration ; 
then  it  opens  with  a  larger  and  finer  movement  to 
embrace  mankind.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  nor- 
mal and  healthy  course  of  any  character.  There  is 
an  illustration  in  the  history  of  these  twelve  men 
who  were  with  Jesus.  Think  what  they  must  have 
been  before  they  knew  their  Master.  The  open  life 
of  free  and  thoughtless  young  men,  they  must  have 
lived,  easily  making  friends,  easily  entering  into 
everybody's  superficial  interests  because  they  had 
only  superficial  feelings  of  their  own,  liking  to  be 
liked,  and  full  of  ready  sympathies.  Then  they  met 
Jesus.  They  were  drawn  away  to  him.  By  him 
they  were  drawn  in  upon  themselves.  To  know 
him,  and  to  know  their  own  deeper  lives  in  him,  be- 
came their  longing.  They  must  have  been  missed 
from  their  old  haunts  in  Capernaum.  They  must 
have  passed  their  old  companions  almost  like  stran- 
gers on  the  street.     Their  lives  were  folded  in  upon 


160  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

themselves,  and  upon  him  who  was  at  the  centre  of 
each.  But  by-and-by  a  new  power  began  to  work 
at  the  enfolded  heart.  He  who  had  drawn  them  in 
upon  himself,  began  to  send  them  abroad.  Another 
kind  of  love  for  their  old  friends,  and  all  the  world 
whom  those  friends  represented,  came  to  them.  They 
began  to  be  seen  again  upon  the  streets.  They  be- 
gan to  find  out  once  more  their  old  companions.  Only 
now  they  are  preaching.  Now  they  are  telling 
every  one  of  the  new  life.  Now  the  power  of  expan- 
siveness  is  not  their  own  careless  good  fellowship; 
it  is  the  eager  soul-craving  grace  of  Jesus  Christ. 
They  have  been  drawn  in  from  the  world  upon  him, 
that  he  might  send  them  out,  full  of  himself,  into  the 
world. 

That  is  a  picture  of  every  Christian  life  which  works 
itself  out  to  its  completeness.  There  is  the  first  easy 
instinctive  human  brotherhood ;  there  is  the  drawing 
in  and  retirement  of  the  nature  on  itself,  with  any 
strong  experience,  most  of  all  with  the  strongest  of 
all  experiences,  the  occupation  of  the  soul  by  Christ ; 
then  there  is  the  large  expansion  of  the  strengthened 
soul,  as  it  longs  for  the  complete  society,  the  brother- 
hood with  man  in  God.  It  is  the  beating  of  the 
great  spiritual  pulse.  It  is  the  systole  and  diastole 
of  the  heart  of  a  whole  man's  history.  It  is  the  suc- 
cession of  man's  fellowship  with  man,  man's  disciple- 
ship  to  Christ,  man's  apostleship  to  men  for  Christ, 
succeeding  one  another. 

Here  is  a  man  in  our  company  who  to-day,  with 
light-hearted,  careless  indifference,  is  the  easy  friend 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  161 

of  everybody  whom  he  meets.  He  welcomes  all  who 
give  themselves  to  him ;  he  gives  himself  to  anybody ; 
because  to  give  and  take  is  such  a  shallow  thing  that 
it  makes  no  impression.  His  intercourses  are  of  that 
surface  sort  which  do  not  get  down  to  where  men 
are  really  different  from  one  another,  and  so  he  easily 
consorts  with  whomsoever  he  may  meet.  He  feels 
no  deep  needs  in  himself,  and  so  anybody  satisfies 
him.  And  now  to  that  man  comes  some  revelation. 
Perhaps  he  enters  the  deep  water  of  some  great  sor- 
row or  some  overwhelming  joy.  Perhaps  he  is  swept 
into  the  irresistible  current  of  some  absorbing  study. 
Perhaps,  greatest  of  all,  that  in  which  all  the  others 
find  their  only  worthy  completion,  he  is  drawn  into 
the  bosom  of  the  realized  love  of  God  by  the  strong 
arm  of  Christ  his  Saviour.  What  is,  what  must  be 
the  first  sign  of  that  great  thing  which  has  come  to 
pass  ?  A  silence  falling  on  the  noisy  communicative- 
ness, a  turning  inward  that  they  may  watch  the  won- 
drous work  within  the  soul  of  those  eyes  which  have 
been  wholly  busy  in  seeing  the  quick  kaleidoscopic 
changes  of  the  things  outside,  a  loosening  of  every 
other  grasp,  that  the  hold  on  the  new  friend  may  be 
complete.  Men  will  stand  round  and  lament  almost 
as  if  they  mourned  for  the  dead.  "  How  he  has  gone 
from  us !  How  his  life,  which  used  to  lie  all  plain  and 
open,  is  hidden.  And  where  ?  We  cannot  tell !  He 
says,  With  Christ  in  God.  We  do  not  know.  But 
evidently  he  is  gone  from  us."  So  they  stand  round 
him  and  lament.  But  by-and-by,  strangely  but  cer- 
tainly, they  become  aware  that  he  is  coming  back  to 
11 


1 62  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

them;  and  coming  far  more  richly,  with  far  more 
close  and  generous  and  tender  giving  of  himself  to 
them,  than  in  those  old  and  careless  days.  Behold 
now  all  that  he  has  is  theirs.  He  loves  them  with 
a  new  love.  He  honors  them  with  a  new  honor.  He 
looks  into  their  faces  as  if  he  saw  behind  each  of 
them  another  face,  which  shone  through  theirs  and 
gave  to  their  sordidness  its  dignity  and  value.  Where 
he  used  to  open  his  arms  to  them,  now  he  opens  his 
heart.  Where  he  once  gave  them  his  counsel,  or  his 
purse,  now  he  gives  them  himself.  Out  of  the  re- 
tirement has  come  a  new  companionship.  The  pulse 
of  the  life  has  once  more  beat  outward,  and  to  the 
contraction  this  new  expansion  has  succeeded. 

It  may  be  that  this  pulsation  will  go  on  and  repeat 
itself  again  and  again.  It  may  be  that  some  new 
revelation  of  truth  will  draw  the  soul  once  more  in 
upon  itself,  but  the  glory  of  the  true  Christian  life 
will  be  that  it  always  reacts  more  vigorously  out- 
ward for  every  new  self-feeding  upon  Christ.  This 
is  its  legitimate  and  healthy  movement.  Disciple- 
ship  and  apostleship  are  the  pulsations  of  the  Christ- 
ian heart.  They  feed  each  other.  Nay,  why  may 
we  not  look  higher  still,  and  when  in  the  myste- 
rious vision,  which  yet  for  all  its  mystery  is  true,  we 
see  Jesus  standing  forth  full  of  the  holiness  of  eter- 
nity, and  saying,  "  Lo,  I  come,"  in  answer  to  a  needy 
world's  cry  for  help,  why  should  we  not  recognize 
that  for  the  divine  as  well  as  for  the  human,  for 
God  as  well  as  man,  there  is  a  necessity  that  the 
inward    completeness  should  utter  itself  in  outward 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  163 

communication ;  that  the  best  which  the  soul  is  in 
itself,  should  be  turned  towards  and  poured  upon 
whatever  other  soul  may  need  it  anywhere  ? 

And  now  we  have  only  to  pass  up  from  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  race,  and  see  how  the  same  law  which 
we  have  been  tracing  applies  there  too.  There  too 
we  have  these  same  three  stages  in  the  intercourse 
of  man  with  man,  and  in  their  succession  lies  the  his- 
tory of  the  Christian  Church,  which  can  never  be, 
ought  never  to  be,  considered  as  something  apart 
from  the  history  of  humanity  at  large,  but  simply  as 
the  heart  of  human  history,  its  centre,  its  ideal,  work- 
ing out  in  type  or  pattern  what  must  ultimately  be 
the  destiny  of  all.  What  are  the  stages  ?  First 
there  is  the  natural  aggregation  and  companionship 
of  man,  the  instinct  for  society,  that  which  makes 
tribes  and  states  and  families,  that  which  inspires 
the  self-sacrificing  fellowship  of  which  savage  history 
gives  us  some  glimpses,  and  of  which  poets  love  to 
sing,  glorifying  far  off  barbarian  islands  as  if  the 
romance  and  the  heroism  of  friendship  belonged  to 
them,  and  almost  necessarily  died  out  as  soon  as 
their  barbarian  simplicity  was  invaded  by  civilization. 
No  doubt  this  is  not  wholly  poetry.  No  doubt 
there  is  a  certain  spontaneousness  of  human  inter- 
course which  belongs  most  naturally  to  the  rudest 
and  simplest  conditions  of  life.  With  culture  comes 
reserve.  With  the  teaching  of  spiritual  religion 
comes  the  emphasis  of  the  single  life  and  the  clear 
demarkation  of  that  group  among  mankind  which  is 
called  the  Church.     The  world  lingers  long-  in  this 


164  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

stage.  The  Church  accepts  exclusiveness  and  limita- 
tion as  her  law  and  principle  of  life.  But  gradually, 
as  she  fills  out  her  life  more  and  more,  she  becomes 
aware  of  a  new  impulse.  She  begins  to  press  on  her 
own  borders.  She  begins  to  see  in  the  distance  a  new 
fellowship  of  man,  a  great  deal  clearer  because  a 
great  deal  deeper  and  more  reasonable  than  the  old. 
The  easy  brotherhood  of  savage  life  shows  but 
poorly  beside  the  great  fellowship  in  Christ  which  is 
to  fill  the  New  Jerusalem.  To  the  bringing  about 
of  that  fellowship  the  Church  by-and-by  consecrates 
itself,  accepting  the  missionary  impulse  as  the  only 
complete  fulfilment  of  its  life. 

I  am  sure,  my  dear  friends,  that  this  is  the  only 
true  conception  of  the  relationship  between  the 
notion  of  culture  and  the  notion  of  missions  in  the 
Christian  Church.  The  notion  of  culture  is  prepara- 
tory to  the  notion  of  missions.  The  men  and  women 
in  a  Christian  land,  in  a  Christian  congregation,  who 
are  consciously  growing  wiser,  braver,  purer,  stron- 
ger by  their  share  in  the  worship  of  a  Christian 
Church,  are  on  the  way  to  a  great  unselfish  conception 
of  life,  in  which  the  bravery,  comfort,  purity  and 
strength  of  their  brethren  anywhere  in  the  world, 
shall  be  dear  to  them  by  the  same  motive  of  love  to 
Christ  and  desire  for  the  progress  of  his  kingdom, 
which  makes  their  own  soul-life  dear.  Unless  their 
spiritual  culture  finds  its  culmination  in  that  craving 
for  the  spread  of  truth  and  the  saving  of  men's  souls, 
it  is  a  thoroughly  unsatisfactory  thing.  And  yet, 
what  do  we  see  ?     Merely  to  look  at  it  011  the  small- 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  165 

est  scale,  I  have  seen  people  standing  outside  of  this 
congregation  of  ours,  restrained  from  full  entrance 
into  the  circle  of  its  life  by  the  natural,  the  inevita- 
ble necessities  which  limit  the  range  of  any  one 
congregation,  complaining  of  the  exclusion,  unreas- 
onably finding  fault  with  the  exclusiveness  of  those 
who  were  its  members.  By-and-by,  in  time,  the  way 
is  opened  for  them  to  become  part  of  our  body,  to  have 
their  regular  place  among  us,  and  all  the  incidental 
privileges  of  our  organization.  And  more  than 
once  I  have  seen  those  very  persons  become  the 
most  exclusive,  the  least  willing  to  welcome  some 
new  comer  to  the  fellowship  into  which  they  them- 
selves have  found  their  way.  It  is  the  everlastingly 
recurring  tendency  to  rest  in  the  stage  of  discipleship 
and  to  refuse  to  cross  the  line  into  apostleship.  There 
could  be  no  better  description  than  that  of  the 
indisposition  of  the  faithful,  constant,  devout  and 
thoughtful  worshipper  to  believe  in,  to  give  his  heart 
and  his  money  to  foreign  missions.  Discipleship,  but 
not  apostleship  for  him  !  And  yet  the  one  is  woful- 
\y  incomplete  without  the  other.  The  one  trying  to 
live  without  the  other,  shows  an  inherent  lack  in  the 
fundamental  qualities  of  faith  in  God  and  faith  in  man, 
which  are  what  the  Christian  religion  really  means. 
This  is  the  real  sadness  of  the  position  which 
one  often  hears  taken  by  the  earnest,  devout  and 
conscientious  members  of  the  Church  at  home. 
They  say  that  they  do  not  believe  in  foreign  mis- 
sions. The  sadness  is  not  simply  that  in  Africa  or 
China  darkness  is  to  be  left  in  some  little  region 


1 66  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

where  they  might  send  light.  It  is  that  they  declare 
the  imperfectness  of  their  own  faith  ;  that  they 
frankly  say  that  either  they  do  not  believe  that  God 
can  do  for  other  men  what  he  is  doing  every  day  for 
them,  or  else  they  do  not  believe  that  those  other 
men  are  capable  of  receiving  from  God  those  bless- 
ings of  the  higher  life  which  they  are  taking  from 
him  constantly — the  lack  of  faith  in  God  or  the  lack 
of  faith  in  man.  And  yet  to  have  those  two  faiths, 
and  to  grow  richer  in  them  constantly,  is  what  it 
means  to  be  a  Christian.  It  is  not  the  desire  to  en- 
force the  argument  of  a  Foreign  Missionary  sermon, 
it  is  the  sincere  and  deep  conviction  of  my  soul, 
when  I  declare  that  if  the  Christian  faith  does  not 
culminate  and  complete  itself  in  the  effort  to  make 
Christ  known  to  all  the  world,  that  faith  appears  to 
me  to  be  a  thoroughly  unreal  and  insignificant 
thing,  destitute  of  power  for  the  single  life,  and  in- 
capable of  being  convincingly  proved  to  be  true. 

But  I  have  dwelt  long  enough,  perhaps  too  long, 
upon  this  general  plea  for  the  essential  apostleship 
of  Christianity.  I  want  to  address  myself,  in  the  few 
moments  which  I  may  yet  occupy,  to  the  peculiar  as- 
pect which  the  mission  of  our  religion  to  the  world 
presents  in  these  especial  modern  times  in  which  we 
live.  A  great  deal  of  what  is  said  concerning  For- 
eign Missions  always  seems  to  me  to  take  for  grant- 
ed a  state  of  things  which  has  long  passed  away,  and 
to  ignore  the  condition  into  which  the  world  and 
Christian  thought  have  passed  to-day,  and  into  which 
they  are  more  and  more  fully  entering.     Men  who 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  167 

are  earnestly,  almost  blatantly,  progressive  in  other 
things,  are  centuries  behind  the  times  in  this.  For 
the  world  has  changed.  With  its  new  rapidity  of 
communication,  with  the  intermingling  of  its  races, 
with  the  careful  study  of  one  part  by  another  part, 
with  the  disposition  of  the  weaker  races  to  seek  re- 
lations of  protection  and  dependence  with  the  strong- 
er, it  is  simply  impossible  that  every  nation,  every 
race  should  keep  its  own  religion  uninvaded,  uninflu- 
enced by  any  other.  The  practical  issue  of  all  the 
present  tendency  of  human  life  must  be  that  the  best 
thought  of  the  world  will  overcome  the  worse 
thought.  There  must  come  a  natural  selection  of 
religions,  a  survival  of  the  fittest  among  faiths.  No 
longer  can  a  range  of  mountains  restrain  two  ideas 
of  God  away  from  any  contact  or  comparison  with 
one  another.  No  longer  can  an  ocean  shut  a  bar- 
barous superstition  out  of  all  knowledge  of  a  bright, 
pure,  enlightened  belief,  that  blesses  men  upon  the  oth- 
er side.  The  winds  that  pulsate  with  all  other  mes- 
sages, will  not  be  silent  concerning  the  good  news 
which  all  hearts  need.  The  waters  that  are  no  long- 
er walls  but  bridges,  will  be  trodden  by  the  invisible 
feet  of  Faith.  To  dream  to-day  of  that  which  old 
Rome  dreamed,  when,  looking  over  her  vast  domain, 
she  saw  each  subject  race  keeping  its  own  faith,  pro- 
vided only  that  all  the  gods  and  oracles  would  teach 
unquestioning  loyalty  to  Caesar ;  to  think  that  it  is 
possible  that  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  should  live 
under  their  separate  religions,  provided  only  that 
each  religion  should  uphold  the  modern  king-ideas 


1 68  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

of  personal  rights,  of  open  trade  and  of  international 
obligations,  that  is  the  most  hopeless  backward  vis- 
ion that  lingers  behind  the  closed  eyelids  of  any 
blind  conservatism.  The  early  Christians  set  out 
from  Caesarea  and  walked  with  simple,  trustful  feet 
right  through  that  vain  dream  of  old  Rome.  The 
modern  Christian  is  found  halting  and  helpless  be- 
fore the  far  more  empty  vision  that  haunts  our  half- 
awakened  Christianity. 

And  if  the  world  has  changed,  so  too  has  Christi- 
anity itself  undergone  changes  which  ought,  to  any 
man  that  understands  them,  to  illuminate  the  possi- 
bility of  the  conversion  of  the  world  to  Christ.  What 
are  they  ?  Compare  the  religion  in  which  you  were 
brought  up,  0  my  religious  friend  of  forty  years,  and 
tell  me !  There  surely  is  a  difference.  You  will  not 
talk  to  your  children  wholly  as  your  parents  talked 
to  you.  The  notion  of  conversion  is  a  more  intelli- 
gible thing.  The  tests  of  the  new  life  are  more  dis- 
tinctly those  which  may  be  known  and  read  of  all 
men.  The  conception  of  personality  in  religion,  of 
the  necessary  difference  of  every  man's  religious  life 
from  every  other's,  has  won  an  almost  exaggerated 
prominence.  And  in  the  stress  of  criticism  and  of 
unbelief,  the  Christian  faith  has  been  compelled  to 
realize  herself,  to  know  what  truly  is  a  part  of  her 
and  what  is  accidental.  She  is  like  a  ship  at  sea,  in 
hard  and  furious  weather,  which  has  taken  in  every- 
thing that  is  ornamental,  which  she  carried  easily 
and  almost  thought  she  could  not  sail  without  when 
the  skies  were  fair,  and  is  sailing  now  through  the 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  169 

tempest  with  all  herself,    but  nothing  but  herself; 
strong   in    her   restored   simplicity   to    go   through 
storm   and  hurricane.     This  is  what  the  Christian 
faith  is  to-day,  and  is  more  and  more  becoming,  the 
simple  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  cordial  wish  to 
see  every  man's  and  every  race's  faith  develope  into 
its  own  type  of  life,  the  knowledge  that  each  man's 
new  life  is  his  old  life,  his  ideal  life ;  that  every  man's 
conversion  is  but  the  re-entrance  into  the  first  plan  of 
God,  for  which  he  was  made.    My  friends,  there  never 
has  been  a  religion  so  made  for  all  the  world  as  that. 
Our  own  dear  faith  has  never,  since  she  stood  tiptoe 
with  St.  Paul  upon  the  shore  of  Troas,  ready  to  cross 
over  into  Europe,  has  never  since  then  stood  so  ready 
for  her  work,  "  with  loins  girt  up  to  run  around  the 
earth."     It  is  the  meeting  of  these  two  conditions 
of  our  century  that   makes  the  friend  of  missions 
hope.     The   opening  world,    the  simplifying  faith ! 
Stanley  penetrates  to  the  centre  of  the   dark  conti- 
nent, and  when  he  comes  out  he  has  left  there,  in  the 
hands  of  King  Mtesa,  the  despotic  ruler   over  two 
million  people,  as  a  kind  of  epitomized  Bible,  a  board 
on  which  the  fascinated,  half-converted  savage  has 
had  written  in  Arabic,  that  he  may  daily  read  them, 
the  Ten  Commandments  of  Moses,  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
and  the    command   of  Jesus,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself."     The  opened  world — the  simpli- 
fied faith  !     Surely  this  of  all  times  is  not  the  time  to 
disbelieve  in  Foreign    Missions;  surely  he  who   de- 
spairs of  the  power  of  the  Gospel  to  convert  the  world 


170  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

to-day,  despairs  of  the  noontide  just  when  the  sunrise 
is  breaking  out  of  twilight  on  the  earth. 

I  think  again  that  it  is  wonderful  how  many  peo- 
ple who  understand  perfectly  what  the  Gospel  is,  in 
the  work  that  it  does  for  them,  are  all  wrong  in  their 
conception  of  what  the  Gospel  has  to  do  for  the 
world,  and  so  have  false  conceptions  about  the  whole 
possibility  of  missions.  They  talk  as  if  what  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  had  to  do,  was  to  go  a  perfect  stran- 
ger into  a  dark  land,  with  whose  people  it  had  before 
had  no  concern,  to  cast  out  everything  that  they  had 
ever  believed,  to  falsify  all  their  hopes,  to  begin  their 
life  all  over.  Perhaps  they  thought  the  same  thing 
once  about  themselves.  Perhaps  they  stood  for 
years  untouched  by  Christianity,  because  Christian- 
ity seemed  to  them  to  be  the  utter  destruction  of  all 
that  they  had  ever  been,  or  thought,  or  hoped. 
They  could  not  understand  it.  It  was  all  strange 
and  foreign  to  them.  But  by-and-by  Christ  really 
came,  and  lo,  he  was  the  revealer  of  that  old  life. 
He  purified  that  old  self;  but  it  was  it  still,  purified 
and  saved,  that  he  set  up  to  be  the  burden  of  their 
thanksgiving.  The  old  hopes  were  enlightened ;  the 
old  ignorant  prayers  were  fulfilled.  It  was  as  when 
the  Apostles  went  out  and  cried  up  and  down  Judea, 
"  The  Messiah  has  come,''  and  Judea  understood  it- 
self. It  was  as  when  Paul  stood  on  Mars  Hill,  and 
cried,  "  Whom  you  ignorantly  worship,  Him  declare 
I  unto  you ; "  and  the  altar  to  the  unknown  God  burst 
for  the  first  time  into  the  bright  blaze  of  an  intelligent 
sacrifice.     And  that  is  what  the  Christian  religion, 


Disciples  and  Apostles.  171 

fulfilling  its  missionary  duty,  has  to  do  for  all  the 
world.  It  is  the  great  interpreter  of  the  religious 
heart  of  man.  Its  manifested  God  speaks,  and  the 
divine  voices  throughout  all  the  world  become  in- 
telligible. Its  message  is  declared,  and  countless 
oracles  that  were  all  blind,  win  a  clear  meaning.  Its 
sacrifice  is  held  up,  and  the  heathen  altar  drops  its 
veil  of  superstition,  and  discerns  its  own  long  lost 
intention.  Its  Son  of  Man  goes  with  his  gracious 
footsteps  through  the  hosts  of  heathen  barbarians,  and 
their  sonship  to  God  leaps  into  consciousness  and  life. 
Not  as  the  rival,  but  as  the  mother  of  them  all,  so 
does  she  stand,  harmonizing  them  with  her  presence 
and  drawing  all  that  is  good  and  true  of  them  into 
herself. 

If  that  be  her  function  and  her  right,  then  it  is  no 
unreasonable  and  bootless  task.  It  is  what  Jesus  did 
for  Judaism.  It  is  what  Peter  did  for  Cornelius.  It 
is  what  some  faith  must  some  day  do  for  all  the  par- 
tial and  corrupt  and  rival  faiths  of  men.  I  could  not 
believe  in  my  own  dear  faith,  the  sweet,  pure,  strong 
faith  of  Christ,  if  I  did  not  believe  that  to  her  and  to 
no  other  belonged  that  glorious  privilege. 

Ah,  my  dear  friends,  my  people,  there  is  the  final 
truth  about  it,  from  which  we  cannot  get  away.  We 
cannot  believe  in  our  Christ  for  ourselves,  unless  we 
believe  in  him  for  all  the  world.  The  more  deeply 
we  believe  in  him  for  ourselves,  the  more  certain  we 
shall  be  that  he  is  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  A 
deeper  personal  faith,  a  more  complete  discipleship, 
that  is  what  you  want.     Hive  that,  and  the  apostle' 


172  Disciples  and  Apostles. 

ship  must  coine.  If  there  is  any  part  of  your  life  not 
wholly  consecrated  to  him,  if  there  is  any  of  his  love 
which  you  have  not  appropriated,  if  there  is  any  un- 
done duty,  which,  as  you  do  it,  will  open  for  you  a 
new  door  into  his  heart,  if  there  is  any  word,  by 
speaking  which  you  can  commit  yourself  more  utter- 
ly to  him;  just  as  surely  as  in  any  of  these  ways 
you  deepen  your  own  spiritual  life  and  make  Jesus 
more  your  Saviour,  just  so  surely  you  will  believe  in 
Foreign  Missions,  and  long  to  tell  all  men  that  he  is 
their  Saviour  too. 


SERMON  X. 

©ft*  fetlt  of  i\u  ^tfamyixm. 

A   FOREIGN   MISSIONARY  SERMON. 

"■  The  heavens,  even  the  heavens  are  the  Lord's  :  but  the  earth  hath 
he  given  to  the  children  of  men." — Psalm  cxv.  16. 

TO-DAY  we  stand  upon  the  summit  of  our  priv- 
ileges and  look  abroad  upon  our  duties.  It  is  as 
if  we  sat  with  Jesus  by  the  well  at  Sychar  and 
heard  him  say,  "  Lift  up  your  eyes  and  look  on 
the  fields,  for  they  are  white  already  to  the  harvest." 
We  are  to  think  of  Foreign  Missions.  And  the 
words  which  have  suggested  the  line  of  thought 
which  I  want  to  ask  you  to  pursue,  are  these  striking 
words  of  David. 

The  heavens  and  the  earth  are  set  in  contrast 
with  each  other.  The  heavens  with  their  sun  and 
moon  and  stars,  their  wandering  winds,  their  majes- 
tic domes  and  pinnacles  and  fields  of  cloud,  their 
mysteries  of  rain  and  dew,  of  frost  and  snow;  and 
then  the  earth,  with  its  familiar  cities  and  forests 
and  corn-fields,  its  homes   of  men  and  women,  its 

seas  and  rivers,  its  sports  and  toils,  its  friendships 

173 


1 74         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

and  kinships,  these  stand  over  against  each  other. 
And  their  contrast  is  in  this — that  while  the  heav- 
ens are  out  of  the  reach  of  man,  the  expression  and 
result  of  forces  which  he  cannot  control,  the  earth 
is  what  man  makes  it.  He  is  the  changing  power 
here.  He  turns  the  rivers  where  he  will,  and  makes 
the  forests  give  place  to  gardens,  and  builds  the  cities 
where  the  lions  used  to  roar.  Over  his  head  all  the 
while  stretch  the  great  mysterious  heavens,  some 
times  all  calmness,  sometimes  all  tumult,  sending 
their  influences  down  to  him,  but  out  of  reach  of  any 
influence  of  his. "  "  The  heavens,  even  the  heavens  are 
the  Lord's.  The  earth  hath  he  given  to  the  children 
of  men." 

It  is  the  familiar  contrast  which  is  always  present 
and  always  having  its  effect  upon  our  life.  The 
earth  and  life  upon  the  earth  are  never  the  same 
things  that  they  would  be  if  the  great  heaven  did 
not  stretch,  mysterious  and  unattainable,  above  them. 
Man,  great  as  his  power  grows  upon  the  earth,  is 
always  kept  aware  of  how  limited  his  power  is. 
There  is  always  the  heaven  above  him,  which  is  not 
his,  but  God's.  And  this  becomes  a  figure  of  the 
limit  of  man's  power  everywhere.  Not  to  create 
first  principles  or  truths,  nor  t<o  change  them  in  any 
way,  but  only  to  apply  them,  to  set  them  at  work 
upon  the  material  of  life,  this  is  the  limited  preroga- 
tive of  man.  Not  to  call  into  being  the  highest 
powers,  but  only  to  open  the  lower  regions  of  nature 
to  their  influence,  as  the  farmer  opens  the  earth  to 
the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  this  is  our  human  work. 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         1 75 

So  David's  verse  has  in  it  the  lofty  description  of  the 
great  philosophy  of  the  universe,  to  the  knowledge 
of  which  mankind  gradually  arrives,  that  the  source 
of  all  power  is  beyond  man's  reach,  and  that  the 
place  of  man  is  just  to  furnish  in  his  faithful  and 
obedient  life  a  medium  through  which  the  power 
that  is  in  the  heavens  may  descend  and  work  upon 
the  earth. 

For  evidently  when  David  says  that  God  has 
"  given  the  earth  to  the  children  of  men,"  he  cannot 
mean  that  it  has  been  given  away  from  those  eternal 
plans  and  purposes  of  goodness  which  God  must 
always  keep  with  reference  to  all  His  creation.  If 
we  had  any  such  thought  as  that  we  should  only 
need  another  verse  of  the  same  David  to  set  us  right. 
In  the  twenty-fourth  psalm  he  sings,  "The  earth  is 
the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof  ;  the  round  world 
and  they  that  dwell  therein."  In  whatever  sense 
then  it  is  true  that  God  has  given  the  earth  to  maD, 
it  is  not  true  in  any  sense  which  would  imply  that  it 
had  ceased  to  be  God's  world,  that  He  had  given  it 
away  from  Himself,  out  of  His  oversight  or  out  of 
those  purposes  of  righteousness  and  holiness  which 
are  in  the  very  substance  of  His  nature.  It  is  God's 
world  still.  It  has  been  given  to  man  not  absolutely, 
but  in  trust,  that  man  may  work  out  in  it  the  will  of 
God ;  given — may  we  not  say  ? — just  as  a  father  gives 
a  child  a  corner  of  his  great  garden,  and  says, 
"  There,  that  is  yours;  now  cultivate  it."  Still  there 
lies  the  father's  great  garden  with  its  orderly  beds 
and  rich  flowers,  which  is  the  child's  pattern  in  all 


ij6         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

that  he  tries  to  do.  Nay,  to  the  father's  great  garden 
the  child  must  go  to  get  the  slips  and  seeds  for 
his  own  soil;  and  when  the  summer  comes  it  is 
by  the  standard  of  the  father's  great  garden  that 
the  success  or  failure  of  the  boy's  gardening  must 
be  judged.  That  is  the  way  in  which  God  has 
given  the  earth  to  man  ;  not  to  be  played  with 
for  our  own  pleasure,  but  to  be  worked  for  Him. 

You  know  how  full  the  parables  of  Jesus  are  of 
this  idea.  "A  certain  householder  planted  a  vine- 
yard, and  let  it  out  to  husbandmen."  "  A  man  travel- 
ling into  a  far  country,  called  his  servants  and  de- 
livered unto  them  his  goods."  "Give  me  the  por- 
tion of  goods  that  falleth  to  me,"  says  the  younger 
son  to  the  father.  "  And  he  divided  unto  them  his 
living,"  runs  the  story.  Everywhere  the  notion  is 
of  entrustment. 

Here  is  the  fundamental  difference  in  the  lives  of 
men.  Man  finds  the  world  in  his  hands.  He  can  do 
with  it  what  he  will.  Oh  how  obedient  it  is,  how 
docile,  and  how  plastic  !  He  makes  the  fields  his 
slaves,  and  bids  them  fill  his  barns  and  load  his  table. 
He  makes  the  hills  his  treasuries  and  calls  upon  their 
silver  and  their  gold  to  glorify  his  life.  He  says  to 
the  river,  "  Feed  me,"  to  the  ocean,  "  Carry  me ; "  to 
the  subtle  powers  of  the  air,  "  Give  me  your  light." 
Everywhere  the  world  is  his.  But  everywhere  the 
difference  of  men  lies  here,  in  whether  this  mastery 
seems  to  be  absolute,  or  whether  it  seems  to  be  a 
trust.  Absolute  mastery  means  self-indulgence.  Its 
reckless  fruits  are  everywhere,  in  arrogance  and  insc- 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         177 

lence,  in  "  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes 
and  the  pride  of  life."  The  mastery  of  trust  means 
humility,  conscientiousness,  elevation,  charity,  the 
fear  of  God  and  love  of  man.  These  are  the  two 
great  types  of  strength  which  fill  the  earth — the 
Caesars  and  Napoleons  claiming  the  earth  for  them- 
selves, and  subduing  it  to  their  proud  wills — the 
Pauls  and  Bonifaces  and  Xaviers  and  Elliots  and 
Livingstons,  claiming  the  earth  for  holiness,  and  sub- 
duing it  to  the  will  of  God. 

And  now  it  is  in  connection  with  this  higher  and 
true  view  of  the  giving  of  the  world  by  God  to 
man  that  the  coming  of  Christ  into  the  world  gains 
its  true  meaning.  "  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself."  What  do  these  words 
of  the  great  apostle  mean  ?  Think  of  it !  Here 
was  God's  world  given  to  man  to  keep,  to  use, 
to  work  for  God.  Here  was  man,  always  falling  into 
the  temptation  to  think  the  gift  of  trust  an  absolute 
gift.  And  here  the  Giver  came  with  clear  assurance 
of  himself;  making  the  men  who  saw  him  know  that 
it  was  he  ;  touching  the  earth  which  was  his  own 
with  a  wise  power  that  called  out  from  it  capacities 
which  the  poor  tenant  never  had  discovered  ;  not 
taking  it  back  out  of  man's  keeping,  but  making 
himself  man,  so  that  all  men  might  see  what  it  might 
really  mean  for  man  to  keep  and  use  and  work  the 
earth  of  God;  so  God  came  to  his  world. 

Could  anything  be  more  effectual  than  that?     It 

was  as  if  the  maker  of  a  great  instrument  had  given 

it  into  the  keeping  of  a  pupil  of  his  who,  losing  the 
12 


178         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 


knowledge  of  what  mysterious  and  mighty  harmonies 
were  hidden  in  the  subtle  mechanism,  had  degraded 
it  to  low  employment  and  played  upon  it  only  danc- 
ing ditties  and  sensuous  melodies.  By-and-by  the 
master  comes  into  the  pupil's  house.  He  lays  his  fin- 
gers on  the  keys.  He  wakes  the  organ's  sleeping 
heart.  The  wakened  instrument  responds,  and  for  a 
moment  men  hear  the  great  revelation  of  its  nature. 
There  is  the  redemption  of  the  organ.  Just  exactly 
such  was  Christ's  redemption  of  the  world.  It  was  a 
true  man ;  all  the  truer  man  because  it  was  God  in 
man ;  it  was  the  Father  in  the  Son  who  showed  what 
earth,  used  in  the  fear  of  God,  might  be.  In  him  there 
could  be  no  doubt  of  what  sort  had  been  the  giving 
of  the  earth  to  the  children  of  men  of  which  David 
had  sung  so  long  ago.  It  could  not  for  one  moment 
seem  to  have  been  a  gift  to  man's  self-indulgence 
and  selfishness.  It  certainly  had  not  been  a  giving 
of  the  earth  away  from  God.  It  had  been  given  to 
the  divine  in  man,  to  that  in  man  which  had  in  it 
the  nature  of  divinity,  and  which  was  capable,  by 
obedience,  of  becoming  infinitely  near  to  God.  It 
was  the  gift  of  trust  from  a  Father  to  his  child,  in 
which  the  given  thing  is  all  the  more  the  Father's 
when  it  has  been  given  to  the  child  who  is  true  part 
of  the  Father.  That  this  is  the  real  nature  of  God's 
gift  of  earth  to  man,  was  the  assertion  of  the  incar- 
nation and  of  all  the  life  of  Jesus. 

I  hope  you  see  that  this  is  no  slight  distinction. 
It  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  man's  life  upon  the  earth. 
Shall  he  make  the  earth  the  kingdom  of  God,  or  the 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         1 79 

kingdom  of  his  own  selfishness  ?  Christ  stands  in 
the  midst  of  all  the  tumult  of  human  history  and 
says  to  men,  "After  this  manner  pray  ye.  Our 
Father  who  art  in  heaven.  Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy 
will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."  The  divine 
character  of  human  life  is  asserted  wherever  that 
prayer  is  prayed.  The  brutal  vices  and  the  cultiva- 
ted frivolities  of  men,  the  cruelties,  and  wrongs,  and 
injustices  of  man  to  man,  the  stupefying  of  men's 
souls  by  self-indulgence,  the  lusts  and  hatred  which 
make  so  much  of  the  earth  so  wretched,  all  of  these 
are  declared  to  be  intruders ;  not  merely  ungodly 
but  inhuman ;  not  the  natural  but  the  unnatural  de- 
velopment of  man's  life  upon  the  earth,  wherever  the 
true  nature  of  God's  gift  of  earth  to  man  is  set  forth 
by  the  life  and  word  of  Jesus. 

It  is  within  this  great  general  purpose  that  all  the 
special  personal  works  which  Christ  does  for  men 
are  included.  He  forgives  the  sins  of  souls  that  are 
penitent.  It  is  that  they  may  be  able  to  take  the 
world  which  God  has  given  them  and  live  in  it  as 
His,  full  of  the  profound  est  gratitude  which  a  soul  can 
feel.  He  comforts  sufferers  in  sorrow.  It  is  that  by 
one  more  avenue  they  may  understand  his  love,  and 
so  bring  loving  hearts  to  the  understanding  of  this 
earthly  life,  and  find  it  full  of  him.  He  sets  before 
men  the  promise  of  eternal  glory.  It  is  that  this  life 
may  be  glorified  by  the  anticipated  radiance  of  the 
perfect  life  to  which  it  leads.  Forgiveness,  consola- 
tion, the  promised  heaven,  none  of  them  has  its  com- 
'plete  and  final  purpose  in  itself.     The  ultimate  pur- 


1 80         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

pose  of  all  is  present  character ;  the  man,  here  and 
now,  living  the  redeemed  life  in  the  redeemed  world, 
offering  in  all  his  godly  use  of  it  the  world  which 
God  has  given  him  to  God.  This  was  what  Christ 
asserted  and  made  possible. 

And  now,  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  foreign 
missions  ?  Do  you  not  see  ?  The  world  is  God's 
world,  given  by  Him  to  man  for  man  to  use  in  obe- 
dience to  God.  Man  has  taken  the  world,  but  he 
has  largely  forgotten  that  it  is  his  in  trust,  and  has 
used  it  largely  as  if  it  were  absolutely  his.  Yet 
everywhere  misgivings  and  vague  reminiscences  of 
the  true  nature  of  the  gift  remain.  These  constitute 
the  never  fixed  but  never  wholly  perishing  religious 
life  of  man.  Now  into  this  world  God  comes  in 
Christ  to  redeem  it  to  Himself,  as  I  have  been  trying 
to  describe.  That  coming  takes  place  at  one  cer- 
tain point.  We  can  see  I  suppose  two  reasons  for 
that.  One  reason  was  that  if  it  were  to  be  a  gen- 
uine Incarnation,  an  actual  utterance  of  the  divine 
life  in  a  special  human  body,  there  was  a  natural 
necessity  that  for  that  body  there  should  be  a  fixed 
locality  upon  the  earth.  There  must  be  a  Holy 
Land.  There  must  be  a  Bethlehem,  and  a  Jerusalem 
where  the  actual  feet  of  the  Incarnate  God  should 
walk.  The  other  reason,  no  doubt,  was  that  this  new 
wonder  was  to  follow  the  principle  of  all  God's  won- 
derful communications,  like  the  communication  of 
light  and  the  communication  of  truth,  which  never 
flash  in  simultaneous  splendor  through  a  whole  at- 
mosphere at  once,  but  always  pass  by  degrees,  how- 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         181 


ever  rapidly,  from  particle  to  particle  in  a  communicat- 
ing medium  -which  itself  is  glorified  and  educated  by 
the  passage.  At  one  point  then  this  Kevelation 
comes,  this  Christ  appears.  But  evidently  that  one 
point  is  but  an  incident.  The  fact  which  he  comes 
to  establish,  the  consciousness  which  he  comes  to 
renew,  is  one  that  belongs  to  all  the  earth.  It  is  as 
true  among  the  snows  of  Greenland  and  in  the  jungles 
of  the  tropics  as  upon  the  rocky  plateau  of  Moriah 
and  the  green  shores  of  Tiberias,  that  the  earth  is 
man's  only  as  man  is  God's.  The  tidings  must  of 
necessity  fall  upon  the  earth  as  the  sun  must  of  ne- 
cessity strike  the  planet  first  upon  some  one  most 
exposed  mountain  top,  but  the  mountain  top  knows 
that  the  sun  is  not  for  it  alone,  but  for  the  world ;  and 
instantly  it  is  calling  to  the  other  hill  tops  and  to 
the  deep  valleys.  Or,  shall  we  say,  in  homelier 
metaphor,  it  is  as  if  a  father  sends  his  message  to  the 
household  of  his  children,  and  one  child  takes  the 
message  at  the  door,  not  the  best  child  by  any  cer- 
tainty, not  by  any  certainty  the  child  most  capable 
of  understanding  what  the  message  means,  but  just 
perhaps  the  child  who  stands  the  nearest  to  the 
door.  And  then  the  moment  that  that  child  has  it 
in  his  hand,  he  knows  that  it  is  not  for  him  alone,  and 
calls  out  to  his  brothers,  "Come  and  hear."  That  is  the 
simple  genesis  of  foreign  missions,  and  its  principle 
always  remains  the  same.  The  circle  widens  from 
its  first  centre.  New  circles  with  new  centres  form, 
but  still  so  long  as  there  is  any  child  in  the  whole 
house  who  has  not  heard  the  father's  message,  the 


1 82         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

impulse  and  the  sense  of  duty  live.     The  desire  tt 
let  the  whole  redeemed  world  know  of  its  redemp 
tion,  moves  in  the  heart  of  every  man  vividly  con- 
scious of  the  redemption  in  himself. 

And  what  will  be  the  result  of  such  a  telling  of 
the  true  nature  of  God's  gift  of  the  world  to  man : 
We  cannot  fail  to  know  beforehand.  That  part  of 
the  world  which  wants  to  use  the  world  selfishly 
and  basely,  will  reject  the  story,  and  perhaps  will 
kill  the  man  who  tells  it.  That  part  of  the  world 
which  has  been  dissatisfied  with  its  attempt  to  make 
the  world  a  mere  scene  of  self-indulgence,  but  which 
has  not  been  able  to  conceive  for  it  any  great  con- 
sistent purpose,  will  be  dazed  and  bewildered  by 
such  a  vast  story  as  this  which  the  incarnation  tells, 
that  all  man's  life,  and  the  earth  where  it  is  lived,  be- 
longs to  God.  But  wherever  any  preservation  of  the 
world's  first  idea  has  been  kept,  it  will  be  brought 
out  to  meet  this  declaration  in  wrhich  it  will  recog- 
nize at  once  a  kinship  to  itself.  Men  and  religions 
in  whom  has  lingered  and  struggled  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  sacredness  of  human  life  and  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  man,  how  they  will  gather  around  the  mis- 
sionary truth  of  Christ  and  say,  ' '  Yes,  we  have  been 
Bure  that  somehow  we  and  our  earth  belonged  to 
God:  behold  how  we  have  tried  to  utter  that  assur- 
ance. This  is  what  our  poor  altar  means.  Nay,  this 
is  what  these  very  idols  meant  at  first,  which  have 
since  then  become  such  wretched  stumbling  blocks. 
We  know  that  we  and  our  earth  have  belonged  to 
God.     Has  he  indeed  come  to  claim  us?    Tell  us 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.  183 

about  it."  Is  it  not  just  what  I  said?  Brother  ask- 
ing of  brother  what  is  the  message  which  the  Father 
has  sent  to  the  whole  family,  but  which  has  fallen 
into  one  child's  hands  before  the  rest ! 

I  think  there  can  hardly  be  conceived  a  picture 
of  any  more  gracious  and  beautiful  relation  between 
man  and  his  fellow-man  than  is  involved  in  such  a 
thought  of  missionary  work  as  this.  There  is  no 
arrogance  about  the  missionary  preacher  or  the  mis- 
sionary nation  that  so  thinks  about  the  missionary 
work.  It  is  not  Moses  standing  superior  to  the 
cringing  multitude,  insulting  their  thirst  with  the 
parade  of  his  power  to  give  or  to  refuse  the  water: 
"  Hear  now,  ye  rebels,  must  we  bring  you  water  out 
of  this  rock  ?  "  Such  missionary  insolence  and  con- 
tempt for  the  heathen  there  may  sometimes  have 
been.  This  is  not  that.  Rather  it  is  the  exquisite  and 
noble  honor  for  the  souls  it  speaks  to,  which  fills  all 
the  rest  of  the  history  of  Moses  beside  that  one  un- 
happy outbreak.  You  remember  the  profound  re- 
spect with  which  the  great  messenger  of  God  again 
and  again  speaks  of  His  Israel.  "  For  they  are  thy 
people  and  thine  inheritance."  So  he  pleads  with  God. 
So  must  Christendom  think  and  speak  of  heathenism ; 
so  it  will  think  and  speak  of  heathenism  when  it  has 
caught  the  true  idea  of  the  message  of  redemption 
which  it  has  to  carry. 

We  have  been  talking  about  the  work  which 
Christendom  has  to  do  for  heathenism,  as  the  carry- 
ing of  a  message ;  and  we  speak  of  it  rightly  so.  Only, 
in  order  to  get  the  fullest  understanding  of  this  mat- 


184         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

ter,  we  must  remember  what  God's  messages  are,  and 
what  it  is  to  carry  them.  One  of  the  lessons  which 
we  learn  in  our  own  Christian  life  at  home  is  that 
God's  messages  are  not  mere  facts,  to  be  given  and 
received  by  the  mere  statement  of  their  terms.  God's 
messages  which  he  has  sent  to  us,  have  always  been 
full  truths,  which  were  not  ours  until  our  whole  na- 
ture had  received  them.  Only  when  they  had  pos- 
sessed each  part  of  us,  our  hearts,  our  tastes,  our 
consciences,  our  intellects,  did  they  become  really 
ours.  Now  we  must  know  that  in  the  same  complete 
way  we  are  to  give  to  the  heathen  what  God  has  given 
us.  Only  as  full  grown  truth,  not  as  mere  bare  fact,  we 
are  to  give  the  gospel  to  the  heathen.  Preaching 
the  gospel  to  the  heathen  is  not  standing  upon  the 
beach  of  a  dark  continent  and  crying  into  the  dark- 
ness the  story  of  the  Lord.  It  is  nothing  less,  no- 
thing easier,  than  laying  upon  all  the  heathen  nature, 
upon  body  and  soul  and  mind  and  conscience  and 
ordinary  habits,  all  together,  the  truth  of  the  redeemed 
world  as  it  has  been  laid  upon  all  our  nature  in  all 
our  Christian  culture.  That  is  the  reason  why  the 
missionary  colleges  in  China  and  in  India,  and  the 
medical  missions  with  their  hospital  where  the  poor 
bring  their  sick  bodies  to  be  healed,  and  the  mission- 
aries' homes  with  their  living  pictures  of  Christian 
family  life,  are  as  true  and  legitimate  a  part  of  our 
missionary  power  as  are  the  churches  where  the  mis- 
sionaries preach.  Philanthropy  and  education  have 
come  in  these  modern  times  to  take  a  very  promi- 
nent  place   in   missionary   operations,  not  because 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         185 

they  were  needed  in  addition  to  religion,  but  be- 
cause they  were  part  of  the  complete  religion,  be- 
cause the  full  truth  of  Christ  must  reach  the  whole 
nature  of  man  through  the  whole  nature  of  man,  or 
the  true  Gospel  was  not  preached.  What  wonder  also 
if  sometimes,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Gospel  looks 
for  recognition  to  a  consciousness  already  present  in' 
the  soul  of  man,  it  should  be  able  to  attain  that  rec- 
ognition the  more  readily,  if  knocking   first  at  the 
outermost  and   easiest  doors  of  physical  necessity 
and  intellectual  curiosity,  it  seeks  through  them  a 
gradual  approach  to  the  chamber  where  the  power 
of  the  deepest   faith   resides,  and  so  philanthropy 
and  education  should  be  at  first  most  prominent  in 
the  missionary  work.     It  is  so  with  the  heathen  man 
among  us  here,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should 
not  be  so  also  with  the  heathen  man  across  the  sea. 
There  are  two  principal  objections  which  in  these 
days  rise  in  men's  minds,  with  every  thought  of  For- 
eign Missions.     One  is  the  excellence  of  the  heathen 
^,nd  the  other  is  the  imperfection  of  Christians.     I 
cannot  but  think  that  both  of  these  objections  dis- 
appear, if  such  an  idea  of  Foreign  Missions  as  I  have 
tried  to  set  before  you  this  morning  is  thoroughly 
understood.     What  shall  we  say  about  the  first  diffi- 
culty?    You  know   how  common  it  is.     When  we 
talk  of  going  to  tell  men  in  heathen  lands  the  story 
of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  we  are  reminded 
that  they  know  very  much  of  God  already.     "  They 
are  not  Godless,"  we  are  told.     Their  sacred  books 
are  opened,  the  holy  lives  of  their  best  men  are  pic- 


1 86         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

tured,  and  the  whole  power  of  their  present  knowl- 
edge of  heaven,  of  the  Deity,  and  of  the  soul,  seems 
to  be  set  as  an  objection  in  the  way  of  their  chance 
of  receiving  the  fuller  light  which  Christianity 
claims  to  be  ready  to  bestow.  Now,  grant,  for  the 
moment,  the  whole  force  of  the  objection,  just  as  it  is 
stated,  and  yet  see  how  powerless  it  is.  If  Chris- 
tianity were  set  forth  as  man's  only  way  of  knowing 
anything  about  God,  it  might  indeed  be  puzzling  to 
the  missionary,  when  he  came  to  his  heathen  land,  to 
find  a  great  deal  of  the  knowledge  of  God  there  al- 
ready. But  if  Christianity  be  what  we  have  pictured, 
a  redemption,  a  bringing  back  and  reclaiming  for 
God  of  an  earth  which  has  always  belonged  to  Him, 
then  surely  the  messenger  of  that  redemption  will 
not  be  surprised,  but  only  devoutly  thankful  when 
he  finds  some  consciousness  of  that  belonging  of  the 
earth  to  God  awaiting  him  wherever  he  goes.  No 
land  so  dark  that  there  is  not  some  such  light  there  ! 
No  brutal  savagedom  so  savage  that,  in  some  breast 
of  nobler  sort,  or,  it  may  be,  kept  only  in  some  fan- 
tastic rite  whose  spiritual  meaning  has  long  been 
lost,  there  is  not  uttered  some  sort  of  craving  for  the 
true  nobility  of  servantship  to  God,  of  stewardship 
for  earth.  There  can  be  no  grudging  of  any  such 
illumination.  Christianity  has  not  got  to  explain  it 
away.  She  is  all  ready  to  lay  hold  on  it  and  magnify 
it  all  she  can.  If  to-day,  in  some  as  yet  unopened 
island  of  the  southern  seas,  there  should  be  found  a 
type  of  spiritual  life  far  surpassing  anything  which 
heathenism  ever  yet  has  shown,  a  fear  of  God  and 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         187 


a  sense  of  duty  and  desire  of  holiness  which  made 
that  island  shine  in  the  midst  of  heathenism  like  a  star 
— what  would  be  the  true  feeling  of  Christianity  to- 
wards that  island  ?  Would  there  not  be  a  special 
impulse  to  send  our  missionary  there  ?  Not  the  same 
impulse  indeed  which  makes  us  want  to  send  him  to 
some  horrid  land,  where  men  are  murdering  and  tor- 
turing each  other  in  their  cruelty  and  lust,  but  a  yet 
higher  impulse  ;  not  the  impulse  which  makes  you 
want  to  put  just  one  ray  of  light  into  the  utter  black- 
ness of  the  midnight,  but  the  impulse  which  makes 
you  want  to  pour  the  full  glory  of  the  noontide  into 
the  beautiful  but  imperfect  glory  of  the  morning. 

And  then  the  other  objection  to  the  work  of  For- 
eign Missions  lies  in  the  imperfection  of  Christians. 
You  know  the  venerable  argument  which  was  never 
very  strong,  and  which  halts  and  stumbles  now  from 
age  and  long  dishonorable  service:  "The  heathen 
in  Boston  !  "  we  are  told.  "  Look  how  poor  a  thing 
our  home  religion  is.  Shall  we  not  make  our  own 
religion  strong,  convert  our  own  masses,  conquer 
our  own  sins,  before  we  go  around  the  world  to 
preach  our  yet  unappropriated  gospel  to.  the  heath- 
en?" It  is  not  always  those  who  are  most  earnest 
01  active  to  complete  our  home  religion  who  use 
such  an  argument.  But  that  is  not  the  point.  It 
all  proceeds  upon  a  wrong  idea  of  Christianity,  and 
of  its  way  of  gaining  power  over  man.  If  we  re- 
cur a  moment  to  the  simple  figure  which  I  used 
awhile  ago,  and  see  the  one  child  who  stands  nearest 
to  the  door  taking  his  father's  message  first,  the  ques- 


1 88         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

tion  comes  at  once:  What  right  has  that  one  child 
to  keep  the  message  all  to  himself,  until  such  time 
as  he  has  perfectly  read  and  learned  and  inwardly 
digested  it,  before  he  gives  it  to  his  brothers,  whose 
it  is  as  much  as  his  ?  What  right  has  Andrew  to 
wait  till  he  is  sure  that  he  has  perfectly  comprehen- 
ded Jesus,  before  he  findeth  his  brother  Simon,  and 
pours  into  his  ears  the  tidings  which  belong  to  both, 
"  We  have  found  the  Messias  "  ? 

Probably  it  is  not  an  argument  with  which  it  is 
worth  while  to  argue,  but  we  cannot  help  thinking 
where,  with  such  an  argument  in  force,  would  have 
been  the  richness  of  Christian  history !  If  every 
land  must  for  itself  have  made  the  very  best  and 
fullest  use  of  the  Gospel  before  it  could  offer  it  to 
any  other  land,  how  the  great  work  would  have 
halted  and  stayed  in  its  first  littleness.  Still,  on  the 
desolate  fields  of  Galilee,  or  amid  the  ruins  of  Jeru- 
salem, a  few  disconsolate  and  hopeless  Jews  would 
be  telling  to-day  to  one  another  the  unbelieved  and 
unused  story  of  the  cross.  The  earnest  heart  and 
manly  intellect  of  Paul,  full  of  the  spirit  of  his  Mas- 
ter, soon  broke  the  spell  of  such  a  sophistry  as  that, 
and  Europe  saw  the  light  through  the  dim  medium 
of  a  Judaism  which  was  itself  still  more  than  half 
darkness. 

Truth  is  too  eager  to  wait  for  any  one  soul  to  ap- 
propriate it  perfectly  before  it  presses  on  through  it 
to  other  souls.  Truth  will  crowd  like  the  river 
through  narrow  gates  of  rock,  to  reach  the  open  val- 
ley which  waits  for  her  beyond,  and  will  not  deny 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         i  89 

her  richness  to  the  open  valley  until  she  has  worn 
herself  a  full  broad  passage  through  the  slowly 
yielding  rock.  A  little  child  finds  a  strange  shell 
upon  the  sea  shore,  and  he  need  not  wait  until  he  has 
himself  completely  understood  it  before  he  carries  it 
to  the  great  naturalist  and  gives  him  in  it  the  one 
golden  key  to  whole  regions  of  knowledge  which 
have  been  locked  up  and  useless.  Indeed  there  is 
no  nobler  sight  than  to  see  the  weaker  thus  minis- 
tering to  the  greater  of  its  own  half  appreciated 
knowledge  of  the  works  of  God.  Let  every  man  tell 
what  he  knows  of  truth,  of  nature,  and  of  God;  and 
other  men  hearing  his  message,  shall  send  back  to 
him  interpretations  of  it  which  he  could  never  have 
discovered  for  himself.  Eeflected  out  of  other  men's 
experiences  it  shall  come  back  to  enlighten  him. 
That  is  the  only  principle. 

This  is  the  simple  principle  of  foreign  missions. 
See  what  we  have  to-day.  The  world  is  growing 
more  and  more  open  every  year.  No  longer  like  a 
ship  with  watertight  compartments,  any  one  of  which 
might  be  flooded  with  blessing  or  with  ruin,  and  the 
rest  remain  unconscious  of  the  change,  no  richer 
and  no  poorer  than  they  were  before ;  but  now,  with 
all  its  bulkheads  broken  down,  so  that  the  whole 
great  system  is  but  one,  and  what  belongs  to  any  part 
belongs  to  all,  so  lives  the  world  to-day,  so  it  is  evi- 
dently going  to  live  more  and  more  in  days  to  come. 

No  longer  are  there  clearly  defined  limits  of  Chris- 
tendom and  heathenism.  The  Chinese  Joss  House 
grins  in  its  fantastic  worship  on  the  streets  of  San 


190         The  Earth  of  the  Redemption. 

Francisco,  and  the  truths  of  Christianity  are  debated 
on  the  highways  of  Japan.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  world  there  is  a  manifest  possibility  of 
a  universal  faith.  Distance  has  ceased  to  be  a  hin- 
drance. Language  no  longer  makes  men  total  stran- 
gers. A  universal  commerce  is  creating  common 
bases  and  forms  of  thought.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  world  there  is  a  manifest,  almost  an 
immediate,  possibility  of  a  universal  religion.  No 
wonder  that  at  such  a  time  the  missionary  spirit 
which  had  slumbered  for  centuries  should  have 
sprung  upon  its  feet,  and  the  last  fifty  years  should 
have  been  one  of  the  very  greatest  epochs  in  mis 
sionary  labor  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world. 

I  have  indicated  clearly  enough  to-day  what  is  the 
special  character  of  this  new  missionary  spirit  of 
these  modern  times.  It  is  not  arrogant.  It  is  hum- 
ble. It  tries  to  learn  as  well  as  teach.  It  does  not 
hesitate  to  feel  and  to  declare  its  honor  for  very 
much  of  the  greatness  and  spiritual  power  of  the 
paganism  to  which  it  brings  the  Gospel. 

That  spirit  is  a  mighty  gain.  It  is  the  spirit  of 
light,  and  honesty  and  truth.  It  is  full  of  faith  in 
God  and  man.  I  have  tried  to  show  also  that  it  is 
the  spirit  of  an  intensified  and  not  of  a  diminished 
energy  in  missionary  work. 

And  yet  we  must  not  let  that  spirit  run  to  false  ex- 
tremes; we  must  not  yield  to  false  exaggerations. 
We  must  not  idealize  heathenism  while  we  see  all  the 
faults  and  flaws  of  an  arch-Christianity.  The  fact 
remains,  beyond   the   contradiction    of  the   wildest 


The  Earth  of  the  Redemption.         191 

folly,  that  the  best  part  of  the  world  to-day  is  Christ- 
ian, and  not  heathen.  The  healthiest  life,  the  truest 
brotherhood,  the  noblest  thought,  the  fullest  man- 
hood, where  is  the  advocate  of  heathen  virtue,  where 
is  the  critic  or  foe  of  Christian  faith,  who  will  deny  to- 
day, as  a  plain  fact,  that  all  these  great  things  are  to 
be  found  within  the  sound  of  the  Gospel,  within  the 
light  of  the  cross,  and  not  under  the  shadow  of  any 
heathen  temple  in  the  most  beautiful  of  pagan  lands  ? 
This  is  our  plea  for  foreign  missions.  God  has 
given  the  earth  to  the  children  of  men.  But  the 
children  of  men  are  God's  children  too.  Only  in  His 
name  and  fear  do  they  truly  possess  the  earth  which 
He  has  given  them.  To  claim  the  earth  for  Him 
was  the  great  work  of  Christ.  To  claim  the  earth 
for  Him  must  be  the  work  of  every  servant  of  Christ 
who  in  any  degree  is  like  his  Master.  That  claim  is 
to  be  made  first  by  living  ourselves  brave,  pure, 
faithful,  Godlike  lives  upon  the  earth,  letting  men 
see  and  proving  to  ourselves  that  a  man  may  live 
upon  this  wicked  earth  as  the  true  child  of  God.  It 
is  to  be  made  again  by  telling  to  all  mankind,  in  the 
never  outworn,  never  outgrown  story  of  the  Incar- 
nation, that  they  and  the  earth  on  which  they  live 
are  not  their  own  but  God's;  are  their  own  only  be- 
cause they  are  God's;  have  been  made  truly  and 
thoroughly  their  own  by  being  redeemed  to  God  in 
Jesus  Christ. 


SERMON  XL 

Vxt  pan  wiift  %\w  Mtttte. 

"  To  another  he  gave  ttvo  talents." — Matthew  xxv.  15. 

IN  the  parable  of  Jesus  the  master  stands  with 
three  servants  before  him.  He  is  just  ready  to 
start  upon  his  journey,  and  he  is  giving  them  his  last 
commissions.  For  reasons  of  his  own,  he  makes  a 
difference  between  them.  To  one  he  gives  five  tal- 
ents, and  to  another  two,  and  to  another  one.  "  To 
every  man  according  to  his  several  ability,"  the 
story  adds.  Then  he  goes  off  and  leaves  them,  and 
each  is  faithful  or  faithless  in  the  use  of  the  money 
with  which  he  is  entrusted. 

I  want  to  speak  to-day  about  the  man  with  the  two 
talents.  He  has  his  own  peculiar  interest,  as  he 
stands  in  the  little  group  of  three  before  the  master. 
He  is  significant,  we  may  almost  say,  because  of  his 
insignificance.  As  their  Lord  puts  the  money  in 
their  hands,  we  can  see  them  look  at  it,  and  can 
guess  what  they  think  about  it.  The  man  to  whom 
five  talents  are  given,  is  surprised  that  he  should  re- 
ceive so  much.  He  is  exhilarated  and  inspired;  or 
192 


The  Man  with    Two   Talents.         193 

perhaps,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  paralyzed  and  over- 
come. The  man  to  whom  one  talent  is  given  is 
startled  at  the  smallness  of  the  trust.  He  too  feels  a 
positive  emotion.  Either  he  is  stung  to  energy  and 
determines  that  he  will  do  something  strong  and 
good,  even  with  this  little  gift.  Or  else  he  is  crushed 
into  despair.  Is  this  then  all  of  which  his  Master 
thinks  him  worthy  ?  Both  of  these  men  are  interest- 
ing. They  represent  extremes.  But  the  man  of  two 
talents  stands  and  looks  at  his  trust,  and  it  is  just 
about  what  he  might  have  expected.  It  is  neither 
very  great  nor  very  small.  It  does  not  exalt  him,  and 
ir  does  not  make  him  ashamed.  He  turns  away  and 
goes  out  to  use  it  with  a  calm,  unexcited  face.  He  is 
the  type  of  common  mediocrity.  He  is  the  average 
man. 

It  is  very  easy  to  be  interested  in  the  man  of  five 
talents,  or  in  the  man  of  one  talent.  Their  interest 
takes  hold  of  us  at  once.  But  I  think  that,  as  we 
look  at  life  longer  and  study  it  more  deeply,  we  feel 
more  and  more  the  importance  of  their  less  sensa- 
tional brother,  the  man  of  the  two  talents,  and  are 
more  and  more  interested  in  seeing  what  he  does 
with  his  money,  have  more  and  more  respect  for  him 
when  we  see  him  going  conscientiously  to  work  to 
turn  it  to  its  best  result.  Let  us  think  of  him  awhile 
this  morning;  the  man  who  is  neither  very  rich  nor 
very  poor,  not  notable  because  of  excess  or  of  defect, 
the  man  with  gifts  like  a  million  others,  the  average 
man. 

He  ought  to  interest  us,  for  he  presents  the  type 
13 


194         The  Man  with    Two   Talents.       %. 

to  which  we  almost  all  belong.  There  are  none  of 
us  probably  who  are  conscious  of  anything  which 
separates  us  as  notably  superior  to  the  great  mass  of 
our  fellow-men.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  not  probable 
that  many  of  us  count  ourselves  distinctly  below  the 
average  of  human  life.  We  do  not  lay  claim  to  the 
five  talents ;  we  will  not  confess  to  the  one.  It  is  as 
men  and  women  of  two  talents  that  we  ordinarily 
count  ourselves,  and  ask  to  be  counted  by  our  breth- 
ren. Therefore  this  quiet,  common-place,  unnoticed 
man,  going  his  faithful  way  in  his  dull  dress  which 
makes  no  mark  and  draws  no  eye,  doing  his  duty  in- 
significantly and  thoroughly,  winning  so  unobtru- 
sively at  last  his  master's  praise,  ought  to  be  interest- 
ing to  us  all. 

He  ought  to  be  interesting  also  because  he  repre- 
sents so  much  the  largest  element  in  universal  hu- 
man life.  The  average  man  is  by  far  the  most 
numerous  man.  The  man  who  goes  beyond  the  aver- 
age, the  man  who  falls  short  of  the  average,  both  of 
them,  by  their  very  definition,  are  exceptions.  They 
are  the  outskirts  and  fringes,  the  capes  and  promom 
tories  of  humanity.  The  great  continent  of  human 
life  is  made  up  of  the  average  existences,  the  mass  of 
two- talented  capacity  and  action. 

It  is  so  even  in  the  simplest  and  most  superficial 
matter  of  the  possession  of  wealth.  The  great  for- 
tunes, with  their  splendid  opportunities,  and  their 
tremendous  responsibilities,  rise  like  gigantic  moun- 
tains which  everybody  sees  out  of  the  general  level 
"}£  comfortable  life.     On  the  other  hand,  excessive 


The  Man  with    Two   Talents.         195 


poverty,  actual  suffering  for  the  necessities  of  life, 
terrible  as  it  is,  is  comparatively  rare.  A  part  of  its 
terribleness  comes  from  its  rarity.  The  great  multi- 
tude of  men  are  neither  very  rich  nor  very  poor. 
The  real  character  and  strength  of  a  community  lies 
neither  in  its  millionaires  nor  in  its  paupers,  but  in 
the  men  of  middle  life,  who  neither  have  more  mon- 
ey than  they  know  how  to  spend  nor  are  pressed 
and  embarrassed  for  the  necessities  of  life. 

» 

The  same  is  true  in  the  matter  of  joy  and  sorrow. 
The  great  mass  of  men  during  the  greater  part  of 
their  lives  are  neither  exultant  and  triumphant  with 
delight,  nor  are  they  crushed  and  broken  down  with 
grief.  They  do  not  go  shouting  their  rapture  to  the 
skies,  and  they  do  not  go  wailing  their  misery  to  the 
sympathetic  winds.  They  are  moderately  happy. 
Joy  flecked  and  toned  down  by  troubles;  troubles 
constantly  relieved  and  lighted  up  by  joy;  that  is 
their  general  condition ;  that  seems  to  be  their  best 
capacity.  The  power  of  the  intensest  joy  and  the 
intensest  pain  belongs  only  to  rare,  peculiar  men. 

Or  if  you  think  about  mental  capacity.  Most  men 
are  neither  sages  nor  fools.  Or  if  you  think  about 
learning,  few  men  are  either  scholars  or  dunces.  Or 
if  you  think  about  popularity  and  fame,  those  whom 
the  whole  world  praises  and  those  whom  all  men  de- 
spise are  both  of  them  exceptional.  You  can  count 
them  easily.  The  great  multitude  whom  you  cannot 
begin  to  count,  who  fill  the  vast  middle-ground  of 
the  great  picture  of  humanity,  is  made  up  of  men 
who  are  simply  well  enough  liked  by  their  fellow- 


196         The  Man  with   Two   Talents. 

men.  They  are  crowned  with  no  garlands,  and  they 
are  pelted  with  no  stones.  They  have  their  share  of 
kindly  interest  and  esteem.  You  cannot  well  think 
of  them  as  either  losing  that  or  as  gaining  much  be- 
yond it. 

And  when  you  come  to  the  profounder  and  the 
more  personal  things,  when  you  come  to  character 
and  to  religion,  there  too  it  is  the  average  that  fills 
your  eye.  Where  are  the  heroes  ?  You  can  find  them , 
if  you  look.  Where  are  the  rascals  ?  You  can  find 
them  too.  Where  are  the  saints  ?  They  shine  where 
no  true  man's  eyes  can  fail  to  see  them.  And  the 
blasphemers,  likewise,  no  one  can  shut  out  of  his  ears. 
But  the  great  host  of  men,  do  you  not  know  how  lit- 
tle reason  they  give  you  to  expect  of  them  either 
great  goodness  or  great  wickedness  ?  You  do  not 
look  to  see  their  faces  kindle  when  you  talk  to  them 
of  Christ.  You  do  not  either  look  to  see  them  grow 
scornful  or  angry  at  his  name.  You  do  not  count 
upon  their  going  to  the  stake  for  principle.  But  you 
do  count  upon  their  paying  their  honest  debts.  You 
have  to  shut  your  thoughts  about  them  in  to  this 
world,  for  when  you  think  of  them  in  eternity  heav- 
en seems  as  much  too  good  for  them  as  hell  seems 
too  bad. 

Sometimes,  when  we  let  it  crowd  itself  upon  us, 
this  fact  of  the  predominance  of  mediocrity,  or  of 
the  average  in  life,  becomes  oppressive.  It  seems  to 
level  life  into  a  great,  broad,  flat,  dreary  plain.  The 
men  of  two  talents  seem  to  have  the  world  to  them- 
selves.    Finding  ourselves  men  of  two  talents,  we 


The  Man  with    Two    Talents.         197 

sometimes  seem  to  be  simply  adding  by  our  existence 
a  little  more  monotony  and  oppression  to  the  mono- 
tonous and  oppressive  life  of  the  great  world. 

We  cannot  get  rid  of  such  oppression,  and  the  de- 
moralization which  it  brings,  by  simply  denying  or 
ignoring  the  fact  of  the  preponderance  of  mediocrity. 
The  fact  is  too  unquestionable.  Only  by  redeeming 
mediocrity,  in  our  own  and  other  men's  esteem ; 
only  by  asserting  and  believing  that  the  man  of  two 
talents  has  a  great  place  and  a  great  chance  in  the 
world,  only  so  can  we  restore  the  healthy  thought 
of  life  which  the  first  sight  of  his  numerousness  dis- 
turbs. This  is  what  I  want  to  try  to  do  this  morn- 
ing. I  want  to  speak  first  of  the  dangers  which 
come  to  us  when  we  know  ourselves  to  be  two-talent 
men,  and  then  of  the  escape  from  those  dangers  as 
we  come  to  know  the  special  powers  and  privileges 
which  belong  to  our  limited  and  middle  life. 

We  need  to  remember  very  clearly  that  what  we 
are  speaking  of  all  along  is  the  possession  of  powers, 
not  the  use  of  powers.  Every  man  is  bound  to  use 
the  powers  he  possesses  to  their  fullest.  But  the 
limit  of  the  powers  which  each  man  possesses  is  not 
in  his  own  hands,  and  there  is  where  the  vast 
majority  of  men  are  obliged  to  make  up  their  minds 
to  mediocrity. 

It  is  not  always  an  easy  thing  for  men  to  make  up 
their  minds  to  mediocrity.  We  cannot  tell  in  how 
many  natures  there  comes  deep  struggle  and  sad 
disappointment  before  the  lot  of  the  average  man  is 
cordially   accepted.     A   young  man  starts   untried. 


198         The  Man  with    Two   Talents. 

He  is  a  problem  to  himself  and  everybody  else.  Who 
can  say  what  strange  capacity  is  folded  in  this  yet 
unopened  life  ?  It  is  a  young  man's  right,  almost 
his  duty,  to  hope,  almost  to  believe,  that  he  has  sin- 
gular capacity,  and  is  not  merely  another  repetition 
of  the  constantly  repeated  average  of  men.  Before 
he  unfolds  the  bundle  which  his  Lord  bas  given  him, 
he  may  well  see  in  his  imagination  the  five  bright 
talents  shining  through  its  folds.  We  would  not 
give  much  for  the  young  man  to  whom  there  came 
no  such  visions  and  dreams  of  extraordinary  life. 
To  see  those  dreams  and  visions  gradually  fade 
away;  little  by  little  to  discover  that  one  has  no  such 
exceptional  capacity;  to  try  one  and  another,  of  the 
adventurous  ways  which  lead  to  the  high  heights 
and  the  great  prizes,  and  find  the  feet  unequal 
to  them ;  to  come  back  at  last  to  the  great  trodden 
highway,  and  plod  on  among  the  undistinguished 
millions,  that  is  often  very  hard.  The  fight  is 
fought,  the  defeat  is  met,  in  silence ;  but  it  is  no  less, 
it  is  more  terrible.  The  hour  in  which  it  becomes 
clear  to  a  young  man  that  that  is  to  be  his  life,  that 
there  is  nothing  else  for  him  to  do  except  to  swell 
the  great  average  of  humanity,  is  often  filled  with 
dangers.  Let  us  see  what  some  of  those  dangers  are. 
In  the  first  place,  the  man  of  two  talents  has  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  do  without  both  of  the  different 
kinds  of  inspiration  which  come  to  the  men  who  are 
better  off  and  the  men  who  are  worse  off  than  he  is. 
The  man  of  five  talents,  the  man  of  exceptional  gifts 
and  opportunities  excites  admiration  and  excites  ex- 


The  Man  with   Two   Talents.         199 

pectation.     He  is  conscious  of  abilities,  and  of  the 
demands  which  other  men  make  of  him  because  of 
those   abilities.       He   feels   men's   eyes   upon    him. 
"Wherever  he  goes  there  is  a  hush  to  see  what  he 
will  do.     He  is  surrounded  with  an  atmosphere  of 
responsibility.     Men  hang  upon  him  for  his  help. 
Men's  jealousy  even,  and  their  readiness  to  criticise 
him,  and  his  own  fear  lest  he   fall  short  of  his  pos- 
sibilities, are   continual   safeguards   and  incentives. 
This  must  be  more  to  him  than  we   can  begin  to 
estimate.      And  on  the  other  hand,  the  man  who 
labors  under  constant  disadvantages,  he  also  has  a 
sting  and  a  spur  of  quite  another  kind.     To  do  great 
things  in  spite  of  difficulties,  that  is  a  very  bugle- 
call  to  many  men.     There  comes  a  desperation  which 
is  inspiration.     To  hear  all  men  saying,  "  you  can  do 
everything,"  there  is  great  strength  in   that.      To 
hear  men    saying,    "  you    can  do  nothing,"  in  that 
too  there  is  strength.     Have  you  read  the  delightful 
biography  of  Henry  Fawcett  the  English  statesman, 
who,  in  total  blindness,  fought  his  way  to  the  House 
of  Commons  and  became  a  power  in  the  realm  ?     It 
has  been  the  hopelessness  of  their  lot  that  has  made 
the  noble  lives  of  many  of  the  noblest  men  the  world 
has  seen. 

But  now  to  the  middle  man,  the  man  who  is 
neither  very  much  nor  very  little — the  man  who  has 
two  talents,  but  only  two — both  of  these  forms  of  im- 
pulse are  denied.  He  is  neither  high  enough  to  hear 
the  calling  of  the  stars,  nor  low  enough  to  feel  the 
tumult  of  the  earthquake.     What  wonder  if  he  often 


200         The  Man  with   Two   Talents. 

falls  asleep  for  sheer  lack  of  sting  and  spur.  What 
wonder  if  he  does  the  moderate  things  that  seem  to  be 
within  his  power  unenthusiastically,  and  then  stops, 
making  no  demand  upon  himself,  since  other  men 
make  no  demand  upon  him. 

And  then  again  the  work  which  the  five-talent  men 
and  the  work  which  the  one-talent  men  undertake  is 
apt  to  have  a  definiteness  and  distinctness  which  the 
work  of  the  average  man  is  very  liable  to  lose.  Ge- 
nius, by  its  very  intensity,  decrees  a  special  path  of 
fire  for  its  vivid  power.  Conscious  limitation,  on  the 
other  hand,  knows  there  is  no  hope  for  it  except  in 
one  direction.  Both  have  the  strength  which  comes 
by  narrowness.  But  the  man  who  knows  himself  to 
be  only  moderately  strong,  is  apt  to  think  that  his 
strength  has  no  peculiar  mission.  He  wastes  himself 
on  this  and  that  in  general,  and  aims  at  nothing  in 
particular.  The  commonplace  man  is  the  discursive 
man.  He  has  neither  the  impetuosity  of  the  torrent 
nor  the  direct  gravitation  of  the  single  drop  of  water. 
He  lies  a  loose  and  sluggish  pool,  and  flows  nowhither 
and  grows  stagnant  by-and-by. 

And  yet  again,  there  is  the  constant  danger  of 
being  made  light  of  by  other  men.  The  man  of 
whom  we  speak  becomes  uninteresting  to  other  peo- 
ple, and  so  loses  interest  in  himself.  He  attracts  no 
reverence  and  he  enlists  no  pity.  Men  do  not  say 
of  him,  "  How  great  he  is  !"  nor  do  they  say,  "  Poor 
fellow ! "  He  finds  himself  unnoticed.  He  must 
originate  out  of  himself  all  that  he  comes  to.  He 
hangs  between  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  and  is  fed 


The  Man  with   Two   Talents.         201 

out  of  neither.     What  he  does  seems  to   be  of  no 
consequence,  because  it  wakens  no  emotion  in  his 
brethren.     He  has  no  influence  on  other  men,  and  so 
there  is  no  effluence,  no  putting  forth  of  life  from  him. 
Am  I  not  telling  a  familiar  story  ?     Suppose  your- 
self an  apostle  of  the  Lord,  a  gospel  exhorter,  trying 
to  stir  men's  souls  to  repentance  and  to  faith.     Do 
you  not  know  what  you  would  say  to  the  man   of 
brilliant  genius,  how  you  would  adjure  him  to  con- 
secrate his  splendid  powers  to  God  ?     Do   you   not 
know  what  you  would  say  to  the  poor  human  creature 
who  seemed  hardly  more  than  a  brute,  begging  him 
to  claim  his  place  in  spite  of  everything  among  God's 
children  ?     But  to  the  man  of  ordinary  faculties  and 
decent  life  and  sluggish  will,  what  can  you  say  ?     I 
think  of  Jesus  looking  in  the  face  of  John,  and  John's 
whole  soul   is   stirred.     I   think   of    Jesus    gazing 
mournfully  at  Judas,  and  I  cannot  estimate  the  power 
of  that  sorrowful  reproach.     There  must  have  been  a 
middle  class ;  a  temperate  zone  of  the  apostolic  life — 
James  the  son  of  Alphaeus,  and  Lebbaeus  whose  sur- 
name was  Thaddseus — between  whom  and  the  Master, 
life  and  the  giving  and  receiving   of  emotion   was 
more  tame  and   less   intense.     However  that   may 
have  been,  the  dangers  of  the  temperate  zone  in  life, 
less  immediately  under  the  Lord's  eye,  are  manifest. 
Routine    respectability   in    conduct,    unenterprising 
orthodoxy  in  opinion,  an  absence  of  high  self-respect, 
which  easily  makes  way  for  petty  self-conceit,  humble- 
ness which  is  not  true  humility,  and  calmness  which  is 
not  energetic  peace,  these  are  the  dangers  of  the  men 


202         The  Man  with    Two   Talents. 

who  have  counted  the  talents  which  their  Lord   has 
given  them  and  found  them  only  two. 

Of  course  the  other  men,  the  richer  and  the  poorer 
men,  have  both  of  them  their  dangers,  of  which  one 
easily  might  speak  in  other  sermons.  Whether  they 
are  greater  or  less  than  this  man's  dangers,  is  but  an 
idle  and  unanswerable  question.  This  man's  are 
very  real  and  very  great. 

And  yet  in  spite  of  all  of  them  (to  come  to  the  sec- 
ond of  my  two  divisions),  the  man  with  two  talents 
has  a  great  chance  in  the  world.  Alas,  for  the  world, 
if  he  had  not !  For,  as  I  said,  it  is  of  him  that  the 
world  mainly  is  composed.  Let  us  turn  now  and  try  to 
see  what  his  chances  are.  I  would  fain  seem  to  my- 
self to  be  looking,  as  I  speak,  into  his  oppressed  and 
discouraged  face,  and  would  try  to  stir  him  to  a 
more  vigorous  and  hopeful  and  enthusiastic  spirit. 

And  I  would  say  first,  ought  you  not  to  remem- 
ber that  it  is  the  quality,  more  than  in  the  quantity 
of  talents  that  their  true  value  lies?  Your  talents 
may  be  two,  another's  five,  another's  one ;  the  real 
point  of  importance  is  that  yours,  whether  they  bf 
few  or  many,  that  yours,  as  much  as  anybody's,  were 
given  you  by  God  and  constitute  a  true,  direct,  and 
sacred  connection  and  channel  of  intercourse  be- 
tween your  soul  and  His.  That  belongs  to  the  very 
fact  of  gift.  What  matters  it  that  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions of  other  men  have  received  about  the  same 
amount  of  gift  from  God  as  you  ?  What  would  it 
matter  if  hundreds  of  millions  of  other  men's  gifts 
had   been   exactly   and   absolutely    identical    with 


The  Man  with   Two   Talents.         203 

yours  ?  That  is  not  true.  Your  gifts,  whatever 
they  may  be  in  bulk,  are  different  in  kind  from  any 
other  Dian's  that  ever  lived.  But  what  if  that  were 
true  ?  Would  not  your  gift  be  still  as  truly  yours,  and 
open  to  your  soul  as  true  a  possible  communion  with 
God  as  if  you  had  been  chosen  to  be  the  one  only 
two-talented  man  in  all  his  kingdom  of  humanity  ? 
You  must  forget  your  brethren,  and  think  of  Him. 
You  must  get  beyond  the  relative  and  get  into  the 
absolute. 

And  if  your  place  in  the  great  crowd  of  medio- 
crity makes  it  the  harder  for  you  to  attain  to  this,  it 
ought  to  make  the  attainment  all  the  more  clear  and 
sure  when  it  is  won.  It  is  easy  for  the  mountain  to 
trace  the  sun's  ray  direct  from  the  sun  to  its  illumi- 
nated peak.  It  is  harder  for  one  wave  on  the  toss- 
ing sea  to  believe  that  it  too  has  its  bridge  of  sun- 
light to  the  sun ;  but  when  it  once  has  found  it,  the 
undiscriminated  wave  must  cling  to  that  radiant 
bridge  even  more  eagerly  and  strongly  than  the  sin- 
gle separate  mountain  summit. 

But  then,  when  you  have  once  separated  yourself 
from  the  great  mass,  and  realized  your  direct  rela- 
tionship to  God,  then  you  may  come  back  into  the 
mass  again  and  see  what  are  the  special  advantages 
which  belong  to  a  faithful  life  lived  in  the  average 
condition,  lived  with  the  average  capacities  of  man. 

Such  a  life  brings  out  and  makes  manifest  the  solid 
strength  which  belongs  to  the  simple  qualities  of 
manhood.  We  are  so  apt  to  grow  frantic  and  fantas- 
tic in  our  struggles.     We  paint  our  heroes  fighting 


204         The  Man  with   Two   Talents. 

their  battles  in  the  clouds  or  in  the  depths.  Types  of 
power  which  can  only  be  developed  in  supreme  joy 
or  supreme  sorrow  enthrall  our  imagination;  and 
then  some  plain  man  comes  who  knows  not  either  rap- 
ture or  despair,  who  simply  has  his  daily  work  to  do, 
his  friends  to  help,  his  enemies  to  forgive,  his  children 
to  love  and  train,  his  trials  to  bear,  his  temptations 
to  conquer,  his  soul  to  save ;  and  what  a  healthiness 
he  brings  into  our  standards,  with  what  a  genuine 
refreshment  he  fills  our  hearts.  Behold  how  great 
are  these  primary  eternal  qualities — patience,  hope, 
kindness,  intelligence,  trust  self-sacrifice.  We  do  not 
accept  them  because  we  cannot  have  something  finer. 
They  show  us  their  intrinsic  fineness  and  we  do 
them  reverence.  The  arctic  frost !  The  torrid  heat ! 
behold  the  true  strength,  the  real  life  of  the  planet 
is  not  in  these.  It  is  in  the  temperate  lands  that  the 
grape  ripens  and  the  wheat  turns  calmly  yellow  in 
the  constant  sun.  Blessed  is  the  life  which  grows  it- 
self into  the  consciousness  of  how  strong  a  man  is 
who  with  the  average  powers  of  a  man  keeps  his  in- 
tegrity and  purity,  becomes  ever  more  upright  and 
pure,  and  also  encourages  the  lives  of  other  men. 
Blessed  is  the  life  which  becomes  always  more 
aware  of  this,  and  makes  it  more  evident  to  its  breth- 
ren. 

It  is  perhaps  only  saying  the  same  thing  in  another 
way  to  claim  that  the  man  conscious  of  mediocrity 
has  the  advantage  of  displaying  in  his  life  and 
character  the  intrinsic  and  essential  life  of  human 
nature.     I  have   already  said  that  he  need  not  be 


The  Man  with   Two   Talents.         205 

lacking  in  the  sense  of  personal  distinctness.  He 
gets  that  from  his  immediate  connection  with  God. 
But  the  other  sense,  the  sense  of  being  thoroughly 
one  with  fellow-men,  that  too  is  very  necessary  for 
the  fullest  life.  Let  it  exist  alone,  and  it  may  only 
amount  to  being  lost  in  the  great  mass.  Let  it  exist 
along  with  a  clear  consciousness  of  personal  commis- 
sion from  the  hand  of  God,  and  it  is  full  of  value.  It 
backs  the  single  career  with  all  the  history  of  man. 
It  surrounds  it  with  the  warm  domestic  atmosphere 
of  human  society.  Anything  which  breaks  in  upon 
that  sense  of  living  the  intrinsic  life  of  humanity  and 
makes  the  personal  life  seem  to  be  exceptional  and 
original  and  solitary,  whatever  compensations  it  may 
bring,  brings  surely  harm.  It  cannot  be  good  for 
any  man  to  live  constantly  in  a  condition  which 
makes  him  count  himself  exceptional,  or  rather  in  a 
condition  which  makes  him  think  more  of  the  ex- 
ceptional than  of  the  universal  element  in  his  life. 
Sometimes,  as  a  separate  and  temporary  experi- 
ence, it  may  be  good.  Sometimes  to  count  oneself 
happy  beyond  any  other  man's  experience  of  hap- 
piness, sometimes  to  be  compelled  to  cry  "Behold 
and  see,  was  there  ever  sorrow  like  to  my  sor- 
row !  "  that  may  be  very  good.  It  is  very  good 
for  the  single  drop  of  water  here  and  there  to  be 
cast  up  out  of  the  stream  and  flash  an  instant  in 
the  sun  alone,  or  be  whirled  alone  a  moment  by 
the  furious  wind;  but  its  great  normal  strength 
is  for  it  to  be  part  of  the  great  current,  to  feel  the 
universal   purpose   round    and  in    itself.      So   only 


206         The  Man  with    Two   Talents. 

does   it   flow   on  in  power  and  peace,  and   at   last 
come  to  the  sea. 

And  if  the  man  of  two  talents  is  able  thus  pecu- 
liarly to  feel  his  oneness  with  his  race,  that  does  not 
only  make  him  calm  and  happy.  It  also  makes  him 
strong.  It  is  a  source  of  power.  It  gives  him  the 
ability  to  help  his  fellow-men  in  ways  which,  whether 
they  be  greater  or  less  than  other  men's  ways,  are 
peculiarly  his  own.  We  naturally  exaggerate  the 
influence  of  notable  people.  I  would  not  underes- 
timate it.  When  God  sends  forth  some  shining  herald 
of  Himself,  whose  supreme  felicity  makes  all  men 
gaze  in  wonder ;  or  when  he  opens  and  displays  in 
some  one  of  his  children's  lives  the  depths  of  man's 
capacity  of  pain,  so  that  all  other  men  stand  over- 
whelmed with  brother-pain  and  pity ;  in  either  case 
he  dowers  those  exceptional  careers  with  special 
capacity  of  helpfulness.  But  the  wrorld  does  not, 
cannot  rest  for  its  perpetual  needs  on  lives  like 
those.  It  is  not  the  wind  which  breathes  upon  the 
planet  from  without.  It  is  the  instinct  which  resides 
in  each  particle  bedded  deep  in  the  mass  of  the 
planet,  and  which  draws  it  always  to  the  centre  of  its 
gravitation,  that  keeps  the  planet  in  its  place.  The 
man  in  whom  men  recognize  simply  an  average 
human  nature  like  their  own,  no  greater  and  no  less, 
who  they  know  has  all  their  passions  and  infirmities 
and  no  more  than  their  strength  to  meet  them  with, 
he  is  the  man  who,  being  faithful,  pure,  serene,  brave, 
hopeful,  has  power  to  make  his  brethren  all  that  he 


The  Man  with    Two   Talents.         207 

tries  to  be,  of  a  kind  which  no  brilliant  leader  of  his 
race  can  show. 

For  he  can  at  once  show  men  what  is  good  and 
make  it  seem  possible.  These  two  together  make 
the  moral  need  of  humankind.  Men  have  perverted 
and  false  standards ;  and  when  they  see  what  the  true 
standard  is,  the  life  to  which  it  seems  to  call  them 
seems  impossible.  But  here,  lo  !  is  a  man  whom 
they  cannot  call  exceptional.  And  see,  with  just  their 
tools  he  does  this  finer  work.  The  thing  they  call 
impossible  for  men  like  them,  he,  being  a  man  like 
them,  does.  Is  there  not  here  a  power,  and  is  it  not 
a  power  which  belongs  distinctly  to  the  man's  medi- 
ocrity, to  the  fact  that  he  is  an  average  man,  and  no 
exception  ? 

Can  you  not  conceive  of  a  man's  feeling  that  in- 
spiration, and  is  it  not  a  noble  inspiration  for  a  man 
to  feel?  You  answer  me,  perhaps,  "  Yes,  but  for  the 
average  man  to  feel  that  inspiration  would  prove  that 
he  was  not  an  average  man.  The  power  to  feel  an 
inspiration  such  as  that,  constitutes  him  immediately 
an  exception."  But  I  remind  you  that  I  am  not 
talking  of  any  mediocrity  except  that  of  powers  or 
of  circumstances.  Not  of  a  mediocrity  in  will  or 
purpose.  I  am  supposing  a  man  of  thoroughly  com- 
monplace and  ordinary  powers,  and  of  perfectly  mo- 
notonous life,  who  at  the  same  time  wants  to  serve 
his  fellow-men.  There  is  nothing  violent,  nothing 
incongruous  in  such  a  supposition ;  and  what  I  claim 
is  that  such  a  man  has,  in  the  very  things  which  make 
his  chance  seem  most  hopeless,  a  chance  of  influence 


208         The  Man  with    Two   Talents. 

and  usefulness  and  power  which  is  peculiarly  his 
own. 

Two  other  possible  advantages  of  average  life  I 
can  do  no  more  than  just  suggest  to  you.  May  it 
not  find  a  self-surrender  to  the  help  of  other  lives 
more  easy,  and  make  that  self-surrender  more  com- 
plete just  in  proportion  as  it  is  released  from  that  de- 
sire for  self-assertion,  that  consciousness  of  being 
something  which  is  worthy  of  men's  observation, 
that  self- value  which  must  haunt  the  lives  of  those 
who,  in  any  way,  on  either  side,  find  themselves  sep- 
arated from  the  great  bulk  of  their  fellow-creatures  ? 

And  is  it  not  true  that  all  that  assertion  of  the 
intrinsic  value  of  every  life,  which  is  the  very  essence 
of  our  Christian  faith,  all  that  redemption  of  the 
soul,  in  the  profoundest  and  the  truest  sense,  which 
was  the  work  of  Christ,  must  come  with  special  wel- 
come and  appreciation  and  delight  to  any  man  who 
feels  his  insignificance,  and  is  in  danger  of  losing 
himself  in  the  vague  mass  of  his  fellows.  Christ 
redeems  him.  Christ  says,  "  Behold  yourself  in 
me,  and  see  that  you  are  not  insignificant."  Christ 
says,  "  I  died  for  you."  Set  thus  upon  his  feet, 
made  a  new  man,  or  made  to  be  the  man  he  is,  with 
what  gratitude  and  faith  and  obedience  must  that 
man  follow  the  Christ  who  is  his  Saviour ! 

Here  let  us  pause.  Shall  we  not  seem  to  see  this 
man  of  the  two  talents  standing  with  what  seem  to 
be  the  respectable  and  comfortable,  but  uninspiring 
and  uninteresting  conditions  of  his  life,  this  man  for 
whom  the  prophecy  of  Agur,  the  son  of  Jakeh  has 


The  Man  with    Two    Talents.         209 

been  fulfilled,  and  who  has  been  given  "  neither  pov- 
erty nor  riches."  What  shall  he  do?  If  he  were 
strong  and  abundant,  he  would  stand  up  joyously  and 
sweep  away  evil,  and  set  wrong  right,  and  build  some 
corner  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  to  the  sound  of  psalms 
and  trumpets.  If  he  were  wretched  and  destitute, 
he  would  defy  his  circumstances,  and  make  their 
very  desperation  sting  him  into  strength.  But  now 
what  shall  he  do  ?  Just  settle  down  into  a  life  of 
uselessness  and  thoughtlessness  and  harmlessnesa 
and  base  animal  comfort  ?  That  is  what  the  tempta- 
tion is  so  strong  to  do.  Oh,  that  we  might  see  to- 
day that  something  else  is  possible.  Oh  that  we 
might  know  that  no  child  of  God  is  lost  into  indis- 
criminateness  from  his  Father's  sight !  Oh,  that  we 
might  see  how  out  of  the  very  fact  of  our  mediocrity 
come  opportunities  of  special  faithfulness  and  of  pe- 
culiar service  to  God  and  to  our  fellow-men. 

"  He  that  had  received  two  talents,  he  also  gained 
other  two."  Those  words,  two  verses  on,  complete 
the  story  of  the  average  man,  faithful  in  mediocrity. 
What  an  epitaph  those  words  would  make  to  write 
upon  the  tombstone  of  a  man  who,  neither  very  rich 
nor  very  poor,  neither  very  joyous  nor  very  sad, 
neither  very  wise  nor  very  ignorant,  neither  very 
strong  nor  very  weak,  had  done  his  duty  bravely 
and  unselfishly,  and  then  passed  on,  to  be  lost  again 
among  the  hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand  who 
follow  the  Lamb,  but  to  do  his  portion  of  God's  work 
in  heaven  as  he  has  done  it  on  the  earth.     What  soul 

could  ask  for  better  destiny  or  praise  than  that  ? 
14 


SERMON  XII. 

§t$tmtwn  m&  inXiilmnt. 

u  I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.'' — Matthew  r.  17. 

IT  was  necessary  that  Christ  the  Son  of  God,  man- 
ifesting His  Father  to  mankind,  should  live 
at  one  special  point  in  human  history  and  at  one  spec- 
ial spot  in  the  world's  geography.  There  had  to  be 
some  one  age  whose  peculiar  circumstances  should 
give  shape  to  the  events  of  his  life.  There  had  to 
be  some  one  land  which  should  become  forever 
memorable  and  sacred  as  that  on  which  his  feet  had 
walked.  But  yet,  while  this  is  true,  everybody  who 
understands  Christ,  knows  that  what  took  place 
visibly  in  Palestine  is  taking  place  spiritually  every- 
where and  always.  Christ  is  always  coming.  And 
that  coming  of  the  gracious  presence  which  men  saw 
and  touched,  and  whose  words  fell  with  warning  or 
exalting  power  on  their  ears,  while  it  had  its  own 
separate  and  unshared  value,  was  also  representa- 
tive of  what  is  continually  going  on.  What  Christ 
was  then,  he  always  is;  what  Christ  did  then,  he  is 

always  doing.       And  so  if  we  want  to  know    how 
210 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  211 

Christ  works  to-day,  we  have  the  Gospel  for  a  perpet- 
ual guide.  The  phenomena  of  that  first  coming  must 
be  the  phenomena  of  all  Christianity.  Take  out  of 
them  that  in  their  tone  which  is  manifestly  local 
and  temporary,  and  the  words  which  Jesus  spoke  of 
and  to  the  Judaism  of  his  time  are  the  same  words 
which  he  is  always  speaking  to  the  Judaisms  of  all 
times.  So  long  as  His  salvation  is  not  yet  complete, 
He  walks  unseen  in  the  world,  as  once  he  walked 
seen  in  Jerusalem,  and  speaks  to  men's  attentive 
souls  as  once  He  spoke  to  their  listening  ears. 

The  words  which  I  have  chosen  for  my  text  this 
morning  illustrate  this.  When  Jesus  came  into  the 
world  to  establish  the  perfect  religion,  he  found  here 
an  imperfect  faith.  The  old  faith  of  the  Jews,  into 
the  very  heart  of  which  the  Lord  was  born,  and 
where  his  life  was  lived,  knew  much  of  God ;  indeed 
knew  more  of  God  than  any  other  religion  which 
the  world  possessed.  Jesus  knew  still  more.  He 
brought  a  higher  and  diviner  presence.  He  came 
with  a  complete  salvation.  How  should  he  treat 
this  partial,  this  imperfect  faith  which  was  already 
on  the  ground  ?  He  might  do  either  of  two  things. 
He  might  sweep  it  away  and  begin  entirely  anew, 
or  he  might  take  this  imperfect  faith  and  fill  it  out 
to  completeness.  He  might  destroy  or  he  might  ful- 
fil. With  the  most  deliberate  wisdom  he  chose  one 
method  and  rejected  the  other.  "  I  am  not  come  to 
destroy,  out  to  fulfil,"  he  said.  Those  are  most  critical, 
decisive  words.  They  declare  the  whole  fundamental 
method  of  the  Master's  ministry.     They  have  their 


212  Destruction  and  Fulfilment. 

root  and  necessity,  as  I  think  we  shall  see,  in  the 
Master's  nature.  It  is  right  that  we  who  live  in  a 
world  where  Christ  is  still  at  work,  should  under- 
stand his  method  and  see  what  it  means,  both  for  the 
world  and  us;  that  he  who  comes  to  save  the  world 
and  to  save  men  declares  that  it  is  as  a  fulfiller  and 
not  as  a  destroyer  that  he  comes. 

A  fulfiller  and  a  destroyer.  Let  us  first  clearly 
understand  the  difference;  and  that  we  may  under- 
stand it  best,  it  will  be  well  to  look  at  it  in  regions 
with  which  we  are  familiar. 

Look  at  it  in  nature.  What  is  the  truly  majestic 
power  of  the  earth  ?  Surely  not  destruction  !  Sure- 
ly not  the  forces  which  sweep  out  of  being  the  things 
which  are  harmful  and  mischievous !  There  are 
such  forces,  but  the  thought  about  the  world  which 
made  those  forces  seem  the  venerable  and  admirable 
forces,  the  forces  to  which  men's  worship  and  admi- 
ration ought  to  be  given,  would  be  horrible !  It  is 
the  forces  of  fulfilment,  the  forces  which  are  always 
crowding  every  process  forward  to  its  full  activity, 
crowding  every  being  and  structure  out  to  its  com- 
pletest  realization  of  itself,  the  forces  of  construction 
and  growth ;  these  are  the  real  vital  forces  of  the 
world.  Nature  takes  hold  of  every  capacity  of  liv- 
ing which  she  finds  anywhere,  and  turns  it  into  life. 
Her  rain  and  dew  find  out  the  least  vitality  and 
feed  it.  To  make  each  imperfection  a  little  less  im- 
perfect, to  bring  each  partial  being  a  little  nearer  to 
completeness,  to  minister  growth  and  not  decay,  to 
minister  decay  only  as  an  incident  and  a  means  to 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  213 

growth,  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil,  that  is  what  na- 
ture comes  lor  with  her  orderly  seasons  and  recur- 
ring years. 

Let  this  serve  us  for  an  illustration.  Go  further  on 
and  think  of  what  man  does  to  his  fellow-man.  We 
are  so  often  set  to  be,  as  it  were,  natures  to  each  oth- 
er. Lives  bend  over  other  lives  as  the  sky  bends 
over  the  earth.  Influences  come  from  man  to  man 
as  the  dew  and  sunshine  come  from  the  bounteous 
heavens  to  the  ready  ground.  There  is  no  one  of 
you  who  has  not  some  other  nature  which  lies  under 
your  nature,  as  the  field  lies  under  the  rain-cloud  to 
receive  its  richness.  When  you  think  of  that  other 
nature  waiting  for  your  ministry,  are  you  not  aware 
of  two  different  treatments,  either  of  which  you  may 
give  it  ?  Your  child,  your  scholar,  your  servant — 
you  may  fulfil  him  or  you  may  destroy  him.  You 
destroy  him  if  you  fasten  on  everything  that  is  bad 
and  crude  and  ridiculous  about  him,  and  pour  out 
upon  it  rebuke  and  contempt.  You  destroy  him  if 
you  make  him  feel  himself  weak  and  insignificant, 
and  drive  him  to  despair.  You  destroy  him  if  you 
make  his  great  feeling  about  his  own  life  to  be 
shame.  On  the  other  hand  you  fulfil  him,  you  fill 
him  out  to  his  full,  to  his  fullest,  if  you  catch 
everything  that  is  good  about  him  and  water  it 
with  judicious  encouragement  and  praise.  You 
fulfil  him  if  you  recognize  every  feeblest  and  clum- 
siest effort  to  do  right,  if  you  inspire  him  with 
hope,  if  you  make  him  seem  to  himself  worth  culti- 
vating and  watching  and  developing. 


214  Destruction  and  Fulfilment. 

A  friend  told  me  the  other  day  of  walking  along 
the  crowded  street  close  by  two  young  people 
who  were  evidently  coming  home  from  work,  and 
how  he  necessarily  overheard  their  talk  with  one 
another.  And  one  of  them  said,  evidently  referring 
to  some  act  of  an  employer,  "  It  was  only  a  little 
thing,  but  I  was  so  tired  and  discouraged  that  noth- 
ing ever  did  me  so  much  good."  Some  word  had 
been  spoken,  some  deed  had  been  done  which  had 
fulfilled  that  tired  and  discouraged  life  a  little.  How 
easy  and  simple  it  appears,  and  yet  how  rare  it  some- 
times seems.  To  say  "well-done  "  to  any  bit  of  work 
that  has  embodied  good  effort,  is  to  take  hold  of  the 
powers  which  have  made  the  effort  and  confirm  and 
strengthen  them.  But  if  you  have  nothing  to  say  to 
your  child  or  to  your  scholar  except  (what  may  be 
perfectly  true)  that  much  of  his  work  is  badly  done, 
that  he  is  wasting  opportunities  and  losing  the  value 
of  his  life,  then  you  are  coming  to  him  not  to  ful- 
fil but  to  destroy. 

I  beg  you  to  think  of  this,  you  who  are  set  in  po- 
sitions of  superintendence  and  authority.  Make  a 
great  deal  more  of  your  right  to  praise  the  good  than 
of  your  right  to  blame  the  bad.  Never  let  a  brave 
and  serious  struggle  after  truth  and  goodness,  how- 
ever weak  it  may  be,  pass  unrecognized.  Do  not  be 
chary  of  appreciation.  Hearts  are  unconsciously 
hungry  for  it.  There  is  little  danger,  especially 
with  us  in  this  cold  New  England  region,  that  appre- 
ciation shall  be  given  too  abundantly.  Here  and 
there,  perhaps,  in  your  shops  and  schools  and  house- 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  2 1 5 

holds,  there  is  some  one  who  has  too  lazily  sunk 
down  upon  the  praise  he  has  received  for  some  good 
work,  and  rested  in  sluggish  satisfaction  on  it;  but 
such  disasters  hardly  count  among  the  unfulfilled 
lives  which  have  lived  meagrely  and  stuntedly  for 
the  lack  of  some  simple  cordial  human  approval  of 
what  they  have  honestly,  however  blunderingly, 
tried  to  do. 

Upon  a  larger  scale  do  we  not  know  how  in  the 
world  at  large  there  are  the  two  kinds  of  men,  the 
fulfilling  and  the  destroying  men?  There  are  some 
men  who  call  out  the  best  of  their  brethren  every- 
where. There  are  men  in  history  whose  whole  work 
has  been  of  this  sort.  They  made  the  better  parts  of 
human  life  seem  possible  and  seem  worth  while.  They 
were  like  sunshine ;  and  the  plants  under  their  in- 
fluence lifted  themselves  up  and  hoped  to  live.  When 
such  men  died,  they  left  the  world  more  vital  and 
complete  because  they  had  lived  in  it.  There  are 
other  men  whose  whole  mission  is  to  destroy.  The 
things  which  they  destroy  are  bad  and  ought  to  be 
destroyed,  but  none  the  less  the  issue  of  the  work 
of  such  men  is  for  disheartening  and  not  for  encour- 
agement. We  are  rich  in  such  men  now-a-days,  per- 
haps never  more  rich.  They  count  the  tares  so  loud 
that  the  field  grows  ashamed  of  itself,  and  forgets  to 
tell  itself  that  there  is  wheat.  Alas,  for  the  city,  the 
state,  the  nation  or  the  church  where  mere  de- 
structive criticism  has  possession  of  men's  tongues 
and  ears. 

If  any  of  you  who  are  trying  to  do  right  are  over- 


216  Destruction  and  Fulfilment. 

come  sometimes  by  the  abundance  of  criticism  on 
your  failures  and  the  absence  of  recognition  of  your 
struggles,  what  shall  you  do  ?  Rejoice  that  behind 
all  your  fellow-men  is  God  !  Rejoice  that  there  is 
one  soul  so  sensitive  to  good  that  no  poor  straggler, 
no  weak  child  in  any  corner  of  this  universe  can 
make  the  slightest  struggle  after  goodness  without 
that  great  good  soul's  feeling  it  instantly  and  recog- 
nizing it  with  eagerness  and  joy.  If  I  can  know 
that  I  am  strong,  let  all  my  brethren,  if  they  will, 
see  only  the  bad  in  me  and  not  the  good.  I  will 
not  be  indifferent  to  what  they  see.  I  will  regret  it 
and  deplore  it;  but  every  effort  which  I  make  for 
righteousness  shall  fly  past  their  indifference,  and 
find  God,  and  report  itself  to  Him.  Fixed  in  His 
sympathetic  recognition,  every  such  effort  becomes 
a  mark  of  attainment  from  which  I  cannot  after- 
wards recede,  and  so  with  each  such  effort  the 
gradual  fulfilment  of  my  life  grows  more  complete. 

The  nobility  and  dignity  of  any  work  is  measured 
by  the  powers  which  it  demands  and  uses.  And  so, 
I  think,  that  the  greatness  of  the  work  of  the  fulfiller, 
as  compared  with  the  work  of  the  destroyer,  is  indi- 
cated by  the  faculties  and  qualities  which  it  requires. 
Destruction  calls  for  nothing  but  hatred  and  vigor. 
Fulfilment  calls  for  sympathy,  intelligence,  patience 
and  hope.  It  is  so  easy  to  give  the  bruised  reed  one 
blow  and  break  it,  to  put  a  summary  hand  upon  the 
smoking  flax  and  quench  it.  Just  to  stand  up  in  the 
community,  and  abuse  its  meanness,  or  its  irreligion, 
just  to  arraign  some  sinner  and  upbraid  his  drunken- 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  2  1 7 

ness  or  his  licentiousness,  that  is  so  easy.  But  to 
take  the  latent  generosity,  or  the  half-conscious  re- 
ligion of  a  community  and  educate  it  and  encourage 
it,  to  take  the  remnants  and  the  seeds  of  good  which 
are  in  the  poor,  broken,  besotted  life  of  the  wretched 
libertine,  or  drunkard,  and  rebuild  them  into  a  new 
career,  that  is  so  hard.  The  one  needs  only  hatred 
and  vehemence ;  the  other  needs  love  and  intelligence 
and  patience  and  hope.  I  know  that  the  second  is 
the  nobler  work,  because  of  the  nobler  powers  it  de- 
mands. I  know  that  it  is  better  not  merely  for  the 
soul  which  I  try  to  fulfil,  but  also  for  my  soul,  that 
I  should  be  the  fulfiller  and  not  the  destroyer  of  my 
brother. 

But  there  is  one  more  truth,  which  we  must  re- 
member, to  make  our  statement  with  regard  to  ful- 
filment and  destruction  entirely  complete.  And  that 
is,  that  fulfilment  of  itself  involves  destruction. 
The  fulfilment  of  the  good  involves  the  destruction 
of  the  bad.  Make  anything  in  the  world  complete 
and  perfect  after  its  true  nature,  and  you  must  there- 
by drive  out  whatever  there  is  of  falsehood  and  pos- 
itive corruption  in  it.  That  statement  does  not  deny 
the  fact,  nor  change  the  character  of  sin.  God  for- 
bid !  I  have  no  patience  with  the  foolish  talk  which 
would  make  sin  nothing  but  imperfection,  and  would 
preach  that  man  needs  nothing  but  to  have  his  de- 
ficiencies supplied,  to  have  his  native  goodness  edu- 
cated and  brought  out,  in  order  to  be  all  that  God 
would  have  him  be.  The  horrible  incompetency  of 
that  doctrine  must  be  manifest  enough  to  any  man 


218  Destruction  and  Fulfilment. 

who  knows  his  own  heart,  or  who  listens  to  the  tu- 
mult of  wickedness  which  rises  up  from  all  the  dark 
places  of  the  earth.     Sin  is  a  dreadful,  positive,  malig- 
nant thing.     What  the  world  in  its  worse  part  needs 
is  not  be  developed,  but  to  be  destroyed.     Any  other 
talk  about  it  is  shallow  and  mischievous  folly.     The 
only  question  is  about  the  best  method  and  means  of 
destruction.     Let   the  sharp  surgeon's  knife  do  its 
terrible  work.     Let  it  cut  deep  and  separate  as  well 
and  thoroughly  as  it  can,  the  false  from  the  true,  the 
corrupt   from  the  uncorrupt:    it  never   can   dissect 
away  the  very  principle  of  corruption  which  is  in  the 
substance  of  the  blood  itself.     Nothing  but  a  new 
reinforcement  of  health  can  accomplish  that.     There 
is  the  whole  story.     Tear  your  sins  away.     Starve 
your  tumultuous  passions.    Resist  temptations.    Aye, 
if  you  will,  punish  yourself  with  stripes  for  your  ini- 
quities.    Cry  out  to  yourself  and  to  your  brethren, 
with  every  voice  that  you  can  raise,  "  Cease  to  do 
evil ; "  but  all  the  time,  down  below,  as  the  deepest  cry 
of  your  life,  let  there  be  this  other,  "  Learn  to  do 
well."     If  you  can  indeed  grow  vigorously  brave  and 
true  and  pure ;  then  cowardice  and  falsehood  and  li- 
centiousness must  perish  in  you.     0  wondrous  silent 
slaughter  of  our  enemies !     0  wondrous  casting  out 
of  fear  as  love  grows  perfect !     0  death  to  sin,  which 
comes  by   the  new  birth  to  righteousness !     0  de- 
struction, which  is  but  the  utterance  of  fulfilment  on 
the  other  side  !     O  everlasting  assurance,  that  evil 
has  of  right  no  place  in   the   world:   and  that   if 
good  would  only  lift  itself  up  to  its  completeness, 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  219 

it  might  claim  the  whole  world  and  all  of  manhood 
for  itself! 

Therefore  with  all  the  strength  which  God  has 
given  us,  let  us  be  fulfillers.  Let  us  try  to  make  the 
life  of  the  world  more  complete.  What  can  we  do  ? 
First,  each  of  us  can  put  one  more  healthy  and  holy 
life  into  the  world,  and  so  directly  increase  the  aggre- 
gation of  righteousness.  That  is  much.  To  fasten 
one  more  link,  however  small,  in  the  growing  chain 
that  is  ultimately  to  bind  humanity  to  God  beyond 
all  fear  of  separation,  is  very  much  indeed.  And 
besides  that,  we  can,  with  sympathy  and  intelli- 
gence, patience  and  hope,  bring  up  the  lagging  side 
in  all  the  vitality  around  us,  and  assert  for  man,  the 
worth,  the  meaning  and  the  possibility  of  this  his 
human  life.  If  all  the  men  and  women  here  were 
doing  these  two  things,  what  a  bright  corner  of  the 
world  this  town,  this  church  would  be  ! 

I  have  dwelt  long  on  this  most  general  statement 
of  our  truth,  and  my  sermon  is  more  than  half  done 
before  I  come  to  trace  in  several  particulars  how  the 
method  of  fulfilment  as  distinct  from  the  method  of 
destruction,  is,  and  always  has  been  distinctively  the 
method  of  the  Christian  faith.  Let  me  do  this  as 
briefly  as  I  can. 

Christianity  from  the  beginning  adopted  the  meth- 
od of  fulfillment  for  its  own  propagation.  It  has 
wandered  from  it  sometimes,  but  the  inherent  genius 
of  its  character  has  always  brought  it  back  to  the 
idea  that  it  was  not  directly  to  fight  with  and  de- 
stroy the  other  religions  of  the  world,  but  to  satisfy 


220  Destruction  and  Fulfilment. 

the  longings  which  these  other  faiths  expressed,  and 
to  lead  on  the  powers  which  those  faiths  were  using, 
to  their  fuller  development  and  loftier  employment. 
Christ,  in  the  eyes  of  the  first  preachers  of  Christian- 
ity, Christ  in  his  own  eyes,  was  so  completely  the 
Master  of  this  world,  so  thoroughly  the  sum  and 
culmination  of  all  good  in  the  world,  that  every 
good  work  was  capable  of  being  taken  up  into  him 
and  made  to  open  in  his  light  into  before  uncon- 
scious and  unsuspected  power.  St.  Paul,  preaching 
at  Athens,  is  the  representative  speaker  of  that  truth ; 
but  it  is  everywhere  in  the  New  Testament.  In  its 
more  vivid  re-appearance,  in  its  more  unhesitating 
re-assertion,  lies  the  hope  and  prospect  of  the  future 
triumphs  of  the  Gospel. 

And  as  with  regard  to  other  religions,  so  with  re- 
gard to  that  which  does  not  call  itself  religion  at  all, 
so  with  that  which,  rejecting  the  very  name  of  relig- 
ion, calls  itself  simply  morality.  Here  is  a  man  who 
is  trying  to  do  right.  He  does  not  talk  of  God,  he 
does  not  think  of  God.  He  simply  tries  to  do  right. 
That  man  is  somewhere  here  this  morning.  What 
does  Christ  say  to  him  ?  We  need  not  be  in  doubt, 
for  something  very  like  his  story  is  written  in  the 
Gospels.  John  said  one  day  to  Jesus,  "  Master,  we 
saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  thy  name,  and  we  for- 
bade him,  because  he  followeth  not  with  us."  And 
Jesus  said,  Forbid  him  not;  for  he  that  is  not  against 
us  is  on  our  part."  "  He  that  is  not  against  us  is  on 
our  part."  There  are  only  two  parties  in  this  world, 
the  party  of  the  right  and  the  party  of  the  wrong. 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  221 


He  who  is  not  for  the  wrong  is  for  the  right.  The 
crudest,  the  least  educated,  the  least  developed,  the 
most  mistaken  of  the  pleaders  for  the  right,  of  the 
men  who  want  to  do  right,  is  on  the  same  side  with 
the  deepest  soul,  the  most  spiritually  minded  child  of 
God,  with  Christ  himself. 

We  can  well  imagine  that  Jesus  afterwards  found 
out  this  half-instructed  caster-out  of  devils,  and  dis- 
played Himself  to  him,  and  fulfilled  his  partial  power, 
and  made  him  one  of  his  disciples.  Certainly  to  the 
secular  moralist  He  is  forever  going.  That  perpet- 
ual tendency  of  morality  to  become  religion,  to 
which  all  history  bears  witness,  is  but  the  continual 
effort  of  Christ  to  fulfil  the  imperfect.  It  fails  again 
and  again,  but  somewhere,  sometime,  it  must  suc- 
ceed. If  not  here,  then  in  some  world  of  larger 
freedom  and  more  light,  the  soul  which  has  here 
earnestly  struggled  to  do  right  simply  because  it  is 
right,  must  see  God  and  recognize  face  to  face  the 
power  which  it  has  always  been  dimly  feeling,  in 
blind  obedience  to  which  it  has  heroically  lived. 
Surely  there  shall  be  no  more  touching  or  impres- 
sive sight  upon  the  borders  of  the  eternal  life,  than 
this,  the  unreligious  doer  of  duty  seeing  God,  under- 
standing, perhaps  in  a  lightning  flash,  whose  is  the 
authority  which  he  has  been  obeying,  whose  is  the 
strength  on  which  he  has  been  really  resting  all 
these  years :  and  in  one  instant  made  religious, 
finding  his  imperfectness  fulfilled  with  God,  and 
casting  himself  in  adoration  and  in  love  before  the 
throne. 


222  Destruction  and  Fulfilment. 

God  sees  our  wickedness  and  pities  it,  through,  all 
his  anger.  God  also  sees  our  emptiness,  and  who 
can  tell  what  is  the  feeling  with  which  he  looks  at 
that.  Our  emptiness  is  our  falling  short  of  that 
which  it  is  possible  for  us  to  be.  It  is  not  emptiness 
for  us  to  be  without  that  which  it  does  not  belong 
to  our  nature  to  possess.  The  pint  measure  is  not 
empty  that  it  does  not  hold  a  quart.  The  eagle  is 
not  empty  of  the  power  of  running,  nor  the  horse 
of  the  power  of  flying.  Emptiness  is  defect.  There 
is  no  defect  where  there  is  not  a  falling  short  of 
some  original  design.  If  you  were  not  made  to  serve 
God  out  of  love,  the  implanting  in  your  life  of  lov- 
ing service  would  not  be  the  fulfilment  of  your  life. 
It  would  be  an  addition  to  it.  It  would  be  as  if  you 
tied  wings  to  the  horse's  shoulders,  not  as  if  you 
bade  them  spring  out  of  the  eagle's  sides. 

Do  you  not  see  the  value  which  this  gives  to  the 
declaration  of  Christ  that  he  comes  to  be  the  ful- 
filler  of  the  life  of  man  ?  He  comes  to  give  us  divine 
enthusiasms,  celestial  loves.  But  it  is  not  as  strange, 
unnatural  things  that  he  would  give  them.  It  is  as 
the  legitimate  possessions  of  our  human  nature,  as 
the  possessions  which,  unconscious,  undeveloped, 
are  ours  already.  The  kingliness  of  nature  which 
the  human  side  of  the  Incarnation  declared  to  be 
man's  possible  life,  the  divine  side  of  the  Incarnation 
makes  to  be  the  actual  life  of  every  man  who  really 
enters  into  its  power. 

The  same  is  true  about  that  experience  often  so 
perplexing  and  distressing,  in  which  one  passes  from 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  223 

a  lower  and  a  narrower  to  a  higher  and  a  broader  form 
of  faith  or  belief.  These  too  Christ  fulfils  and  does 
not  destroy.  Evidently  such  progress  is  possible. 
Many  of  us  humbly  rejoice  in  the  belief  that  we  have 
made  such  progress.  And  we  believe  in  no  portion  of 
our  lives  have  we  more  truly  been  under  Christ's  im- 
mediate guidance  than  in  the  making  of  that  progress. 
But  what  became  of  the  old  faith  ?  Did  Christ  de- 
stroy it  as  a  useless  thing,  a  poor  delusion,  too  false 
for  any  soul  to  live  in  ?  Alas,  for  any  one  of  us  who 
sees  no  more  in  what  he  did  for  us  than  that !  He 
who  thinks  so  must  look  back  on  the  years  in  which 
he  lived  in  his  old  faith,  and  call  them  years  of 
waste.  How  could  it  be  that  God  let  the  soul  of  his 
child  live  so  long  in  prison  ?  But  what  if  it  were 
not  a  prison  ?  What  if  I  can  think  of  the  advance 
which  God  has  made  possible  for  me  into  a  larger 
faith,  not  as  the  setting  free  out  of  a  dungeon,  but  as 
the  movement  forward  from  the  imperfectness  of 
youth  into  the  riper  life  of  manhood  ?  Call  youth  a 
prison,  if  you  will.  It  is  a  prison  whose  walls  are 
transparent  hopes,  and  whose  window-bars  are  sun- 
beams. There  was  no  waste  in  those  years  of  immatu- 
rity. It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  years  in  which  we 
believed  narrowly  and  waited  for  the  fulfilment 
which  in  part  has  come,  were  not  wasted  years,  and 
it  is  not  strange  that  God  let  his  children  remain  in 
them  so  long! 

I  hate  to  hear  a  man  who  has  passed  out  of  a  nar- 
rower into  a  larger  faith,  upbraid  and  revile  the  faith 
in  which  he  used  to  live.     It  is  making  the  Christ 


224  Destruction  and  Fulfilment 

who  has  led  him,  to  be  not  the  fulfiller,  but  the  de- 
stroyer. It  is  shutting  the  flood-gates  between  the 
past  and  the  present,  so  that  what  the  man  is  gets  no 
help  from  what  he  used  to  be.  What  shall  the  man 
who  thinks  so  about  the  past  make  of  the  future? 
Does  he  think  there  are  no  changes  still  awaiting 
him  ?  Does  he  think  he  has  attained  all  truth  ?  If 
not,  if  there  are  new  advances  for  him  still  to  make, 
will  the  time  come  when  on  this  which  he  is  now,  he 
will  look  back  with  the  same  hatred  and  scorn  with 
which  he  looks  back  at  this  moment  on  his  child- 
hood's creed  ?  The  man  who  talks  so  is  at  heart  a 
dogmatist.  He  has  not  learned  the  great  truth  of  our 
Christianity,  the  truth  of  Christ,  that  that  to  which 
we  belong  is  not  an  idea,  however  true,  not  a  creed, 
however  broad  or  narrow,  but  a  friend,  a  father,  God. 
Wherever  God  has  given  himself  to  us,  that  must  be 
to  us  forever  sacred  ground.  Whenever  he  has 
led  us  out  from  more  imperfect  into  less  imperfect 
truth,  it  has  been  fulfilment,  not  destruction  of  that 
in  which  he  kept  us  living  for  awhile  before  we  made 
the  progress  and  saw  the  fuller  light.  God  never  de- 
stroys any  real  belief.  When  the  Hindoo  becomes  a 
Christian,  when  the  moralist  becomes  a  Christian, 
when  the  narrow  Christian  becomes  a  broader  Chris- 
tian, it  is  a  deeper  heart  in  the  old  life  that  opens. 
The  old  creed,  the  old  experience  lives  more  truly, 
and  does  not  die,  as  it  gives  place  to  the  new. 

How  often,  as  you  grow  more  earnest  in  your  new 
faith,  your  old  faith,  which  you  seemed  to  have  quite 
done  with,  re-appears  and   grows   more   sacred   to 


Destruction  and  Fulfilment.  225 

you,  and  you  are  sure  that  it  has  not  perished,  but  is 
living-  in  the  heart  of  what  you  now  believe.  You 
become  sure  that  in  the  perfect  earnestness  of  heav- 
en, all  that  you  ever  thoroughly  believed  on  earth 
will  come  back  to  you,  and  you  will  see  that,  how- 
ever in  your  after  life  you  rejected  it,  it  was  not  in 
vain  that  you  had  once  believed  it.  It  will  make 
part  of  your  eternal  faith.  As  I  grow  more  and 
more  earnest,  I  expect  that  my  dead  faiths  will  rise 
and  show  they  are  not  dead.  Let  true  faithfulness 
walk  over  the  graves  of  a  buried  belief,  and  the  dust 
of  the  long  silent  faith 

"  Would  hear  her  and  beat, 

Had  it  lain  for  a  century  dead — 
Would  start  and  tremble  under  her  feet." 

They  are  not  dead  but  sleeping,  all  that  our  hearts 
have  ever  truly,  thoroughly  believed. 

Let  us  fill  ourselves  with  Christ's  conception  of  him- 
self, and  how  full  of  richness  and  peace  life  becomes. 
Christ  is  always  fulfilling  us,  while  we  wake  and 
while  we  sleep,  in  work  and  rest,  in  joy  and  sorrow. 
He  is  always  leading  us  forth  into  new  and  richer 
rooms  of  character  and  life  and  truth.  Obedience, 
docility,  perfect  readiness  to  be  led,  that,  that  alone 
is  what  we  want.  May  He  give  us  that,  and  then 
fulfil  us  with  Himself  more  and  more,  as  our  empti- 
ness opens  wider  and  His  grace  abounds  more  and 
more  richly  through  all  eternity. 
15 


SERMON  XI I L 

IJteJtf  tto  p*«  fit  §wu. 

"And  Jesus  said,  Make  *he  men  sit  down." — John  vi.  10. 

IT  was  on  the  farther  side  of  the  sea  of  Tiberias, 
a  region  which  Christ  seldom  visited,  a  region 
which  is  to-day  a  wilderness.  A  multitude  had  fol- 
lowed the  Lord  across  the  water  and  were  filling  the 
empty  place  with  crowd  and  clamor  and  confusion. 
Curiosity  was  all  alive.  What  he  had  done  last,  what 
he  would  do  next,  was  flying  about  in  question  and 
answer  from  mouth  to  mouth.  The  scene  was  full 
of  movement.  Every  man  was  on  his  feet.  Old 
friends  were  meeting.  Christ's  adherents  were  eag- 
erly pleading  for  him.  The  enemies  of  Christ  were 
violently  claiming  that  he  was  an  impostor.  Ges- 
tures were  furious;  words  came  fast;  faces  glowed; 
eyes  sparkled;  feet  hurried  back  and  forth.  Such  is 
the  picture  which  seems  to  paint  itself  before  us  in 
the  first  verses  of  this  sixth  chapter  of  St.  John. 

And  then  there   comes   a  change.     The   midday 
sun  grows  hot.     Hunger  and  exhaustion  take  pos- 
session of  these  excited  frames.     The  need  of  rest 
226 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Down.  227 

overcomes  the  eagerness  of  action.  And  out  of  the 
midst  of  the  flagging  tumult  comes  the  calm  voice 
of  Jesus,  saying  to  his  disciples  who  are  closest  to 
him,  "  Make  the  men  sit  down."  And  the  disciples 
pass  here  and  there  through  the  crowd,  doing  their 
Master's  will,  until  five  thousand  men  are  seated  on 
the  grass. 

Then  a  new  scene  appears.  Quiet  has  come  in 
place  of  the  noise ;  repose  instead  of  action.  Faces 
which  just  now  were  flushed  and  excited  have  grown 
calm.  And,  what  is  really  at  the  heart  of  all,  there 
is  a  change  in  the  whole  crowd's  activity.  It  has 
become  receptive.  It  is  waiting  to  be  fed.  Not  on- 
ly with  the  barley  loaves  and  fishes.  The  presence 
of  Christ  is  before  it  and  it  receives  that.  By-and-by 
the  words  of  Christ  fall  on  it  and  it  receives  them, 
until  at  last  there  begins  to  break  forth  from  the 
seated  ranks  the  declaration  that  they  have  indeed 
received  him,  and  they  whisper  to  one  another, 
"  This  is  indeed  the  prophet  that  should  come  into  the 
world." 

This  is  the  meaning  which  I  find  in  the  words  of 
Jesus  when  he  said  to  his  disciples,  "  Make  the  men 
sit  down."  It  is  the  change  from  the  active  and 
restless  to  the  receptive  and  quiet  state,  from  the  con- 
dition in  which  all  the  life  was  flowing  outward  in 
eager  self-assertion,  to  the  other  condition  in  which 
the  life  was  being  influenced,  that  is,  being  flowed 
upon  by  the  richer  power  which  came  forth  from 
him. 

If  we  let  our  thought  separate  one  individual  out 


228  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 

of  the  multitude  and  dwell  on  him,  we  can  feel  what 
I  am  speaking  of  more  clearly.  Here  is  a  man  who 
has  come  down  out  of  Capernaum  and  crossed  the 
lake  and  gone  up  after  Jesus  either  as  friend  or  foe. 
He  has  wanted  to  say  something,  to  do  something, 
to  utter  himself.  He  has  been  eager,  active,  confi- 
dent, vehement.  By-and-by  one  of  the  disciples,  John 
or  Andrew  or  Bartholomew,  has  come  to  him  as  he 
was  standing  vehemently  arguing,  or  as  he  was 
rushing  hither  and  thither,  shouting  out  his  oracular 
judgments,  and  has  said  to  him,  "  The  Master  bids 
you  sit  down  and  wait  quietly  until  he  feeds  you." 
Can  you  not  see  the  change  which  comes  over  the 
man's  face  ?  In  a  moment  he  finds  himself  silent  in 
the  presence  of  a  great  divine  graciousness,  a  wis- 
dom and  power  which  is  active  for  him.  The  sense 
of  being  fed,  of  having  another's  richness  poured 
forth  on  him,  takes  possession  of  his  soul.  With  the 
supply,  the  consciousness  of  needing  to  be  fed  grows 
deeper.  Self-sufficiency,  self-assertion  fades  away 
and  is  lost.  Humility,  docility,  faith  fills  his  whole 
nature.  It  is  a  new  man  that  hardly  knows  the 
old.  All  this  deepening  and  richening  has  come 
since  the  word  of  Jesus  bade  him  sit  down  and  be 
fed. 

If  I  have  made  the  suggestion  of  the  story  clear, 
then  we  may  almost  entirely  leave  the  story  and  pass 
on  to  the  subject  of  which  I  wish  to  speak  to  you  this 
morning.  It  is  the  need  which  comes  to  men  of 
simply  being  fed  by  God,  of  ceasing  from  forth-put- 
tingness  and  self-assertion,  and  simply  being  recep- 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Down.  229 

tive  to  the  influences  which  come  to  them  from 
divinity. 

Before  I  really  begin  to  speak  about  that  subject, 
I  am  moved  to  take  my  congregation  into  my  confi- 
dence. I  am  moved  to  tell  them  of  how  a  minister 
feels  very  often,  and  of  how  I  feel  to-day,  what  a 
great  danger  there  is  of  the  wrong  people  taking  the 
wrong  sermons  to  themselves.  A  minister  preaches 
a  sermon  on  the  need  of  visible  activity  and  utter- 
ance, and  very  often  the  man  whose  life  needs  medi- 
tation and  quiet  self-study  takes  the  sermon  to  him- 
self, and  rushes  forth  to  even  more  of  wild  and  super- 
ficial action.  Again  the  preacher  preaches  on  the 
necessity  and  duty  of  quietude,  and  just  the  soul 
which  needs  to  put  forth  in  action  the  impulse  which 
it  has  already  quietly  accumulated,  plunges  itself 
more  profoundly  into  quiescent  calm.  We  take  each 
other's  medicines  and  often  increase  instead  of  healing 
our  diseases.  Many  a  time  one  wants  not  to  take 
back  a  sermon  he  has  preached,  but  to  send  quickly 
after  it  another  which  shall  preach  the  other  truth, 
and  find  the  souls  for  which  this,  and  not  the  first, 
was  meant.  I  can  only  beg  each  of  you  to  listen  con- 
scientiously to-day,  and  see  whether  what  I  shall  say 
is  meant  for  you. 

There  is  a  danger  then  for  many  men,  if  not  for  all, 
in  the  perpetual  outgo  of  energy  which  so  much  of 
our  life  involves.  Life  is  made  up  of  tasks  and  pro- 
blems. How  soon  they  meet  us.  How  constantly 
they  are  with  us  all  our  days.  "  Come  and  do  this," 
the  world  says  to  the  little  child,  hardly  more  than  a 


230  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 

baby,  holding  out  to  him  some  of  its  crude  material 
which  needs  to  be  transformed  into  some  other  shape. 
"  Come  and  see  what  you  think  of  this,"  she  says 
again,  holding  up  some  hard  and  knotty  problem,  and 
bidding  him  exercise  his  ingenious  intellect  upon  it. 
It  is  one  process  of  education,  the  calling  out  of  pow- 
ers by  their  use.  It  is  the  tendency  of  all  the  prac- 
tical necessities  of  life,  the  constant  outward  move- 
ment of  activity.  "  All  is  going  out,  nothing  is  com- 
ing in ; "  is  not  that  the  dismay  and  the  despair  which 
settles  down  upon  many  an  experience  as  it  attains 
to  middle  life  ?  Existence  comes  to  feel  to  many  of 
us  like  a  great  river,  which  is  always  flowing  with 
unbroken  force  downward  to  the  sea.  It  never  stops. 
It  is  always  pushing  its  waters  outward.  It  gives 
the  sea  no  chance  to  flow  up  into  it.  So  is  the  ever 
energetic  life  of  one  whose  sole  idea  is  to  exert  influ- 
ence, to  make  himself  felt  in  some  result.  How  often 
the  river  must  long  to  pause.  How  often  it  must  be- 
come aware  that  its  impetuous  rush  is  losing  for  it 
the  richness  of  the  great  deep  salt  sea.  How  often 
the  busy  life  of  man  becomes  aware  that  somewhere 
round  it  there  is  richness  which  it  does  not  get  be- 
cause it  opens  outward  only,  and  not  inward.  How 
often  it  desires  to  pause  and  grow  receptive,  and  take 
into  itself  the  richness  which  it  now  is  keeping  out. 
All  this  perhaps  sounds  very  strange  to  some  of  us, 
this  statement  of  the  need  of  rest  and  receptivity. 
It  will  be  good  for  us  to  stop  a  moment  and  remem- 
ber that  there  are  races,  and  there  have  been  times  to 
which  it  has  been  anything  but  strange,  to  which  it 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Down.  231 

has  been  the  most  familiar  truth  of  life.  You  open 
the  record  of  the  Fourth  Century  and  it  is  full  of  the 
pictures  of  hermits  sitting  on  rough  mountain  sides, 
or  beside  the  great  silent  river  of  Egypt,  just  listening 
for  the  voice  of  God.  You  let  your  boat  drop  quietly 
down  the  Ganges  to-day,  and  along  its  banks  the 
silent  figures  sit  like  carved  brown  statues,  hour 
after  hour,  day  after  day,  with  eyes  open  and  fixed 
on  vacancy,  clearing  themselves  of  all  thought,  emo- 
tion and  desire,  that  being  emptied  of  self,  they  may 
see  God.  The  most  populous  religion  of  the  world 
to-day  is  that  which  flows  out  from  the  sacred  seat, 
under  the  sacred  tree  at  Gaya,  where  Buddha  sat  for 
six  years  silent,  receptive,  until  the  great  illumination 
came.  The  East  believes  only  too  readily  what  the 
West  finds  it  so  very  hard  to  realize  and  accept,  that 
no  life  is  complete  which  does  not  sometimes  sit 
trustfully  waiting  to  be  fed  by  God. 

Are  there  not  times  enough  in  all  our  western 
lives,  in  all  our  lives,  simply  because  and  so  far  as 
they  are  human  lives,  when  this  same  necessity 
bears  witness  of  itself  to  us  all?  The  days  of  child- 
hood, before  action  has  begun ;  the  days  of  old  age, 
when  action  is  over ;  in  both  of  those  times  the  soul 
is  sitting  before  God.  Childhood  is  full  of  wonder 
and  expectancy.  Sitting  at  the  father's  knee,  looking 
up  into  his  face,  that  is  its  truest  picture.  Old  age 
is  not  at  its  best  if  it  is  simply  retrospective.  It  has 
travelled  across  the  continent  and  stands  upon  the 
border  of  the  great  Pacific  Sea.  It  feels  the  leagues  of 
weary  delightful  journeying  behind  it,  but  its  face,  as 


232  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 

it  waits  upon  the  seashore,  is  towards  the  west,  and  not 
towards  the  east.  God  is  speaking  to  it  out  of  the 
awful  emptiness  of  the  ocean  and  the  unknown  rich- 
ness of  the  lands  beyond.  The  same  is  true  of  a 
great  dismay,  a  great  discovery,  a  great  sorrow  or  a 
great  joy.  Can  we  find  a  truer  description  of  that 
which  has  taken  place  some  day,  in  the  homes  of 
all  of  you  into  whose  faces  I  am  looking  now,  than 
is  included  in  the  figure  which  I  used  a  while  ago? 
Some  day  the  headlong  current  of  your  life  was  stop- 
ped. The  river  ceased  to  flow.  The  waves  stood 
still,  and  then  the  ocean  which  the  flowing  of  the  riv- 
er had  kept  out,  poured  up  and  in,  and  there  were 
sacreder  emotions  in  the  old  channels,  and  deeper 
hopes  and  fears  beating  upon  the  well-worn  banks. 
The  day  when  your  great  bereavement  came — the 
day  when  the  neighbors  knew  that  death  was  in 
your  house — the  day  when  joy,  with  that  subtle  look  of 
the  possibility  of  deep  pain  which  is  always  in  her 
eyes,  came  to  your  door  and  knocked,  in  the  first 
splendor  of  the  rising  sun — the  day  when  being 
weak  and  ill  you  did  not  go  to  your  business,  and  the 
streets  which  you  knew  so  well  seemed  strange  to 
you  as  you  looked  out  of  the  window:  those  were  the 
days  when  God  was  feeding  you.  You  lost  the 
sense  of  being  one  who  was  to  act,  and  you  were  one 
to  whom  God  was  to  do  something.  You  were  for 
the  time  all  oriental  then. 

How  sacred  and  rich  afterwards  become  the  rooms 
where  such  experiences  have  taken  place.  The 
stream  may  start  again  and  push  the  intrusive  ocean 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Dozvn. 


once  more  back  into  its  bed,  but  the  river-channel 
can  never  quite  forget  its  overflow.  The  house  may 
go  back  to  its  common  uses,  and  its  doors  open  and 
shut  upon  the  comers  and  goers  of  ordinary  life,  but 
it  will  never  be  quite  the  same  that  it  was  before  the 
day  on  which  the  unseen  presence  filled  it.  It  can 
never  be  perfectly  secular  again.  This  is  the  way 
in  which  the  new  houses  which  are  so  crude  and  raw 
when  we  move  into  them  mellow  and  ripen  as  the 
years  go  on;  as  the  earth  which  is  so  harsh  and 
earthly  in  the  glare  of  noontide,  is  softened  and 
richened  by  the  ever-returning  dusk  of  morning 
and  evening,  in  which  it  seems  as  if  it  once  had  been, 
and  might  again  be,  heaven. 

I  want  you  to  notice,  with  regard  to  this  blessed- 
ness of  a  pause  in  the  outflowing  energy  of  life,  that 
it  applies  not  merely  to  what  we  call  our  secular  oc- 
cupations, but  to  our  sacred  and  religious  ones  as 
well.  Indeed  it  often  seems  as  if  there  were  a 
sense  in  which  it  might  be  said  that  nothing  so 
tended  to  keep  God  out  of  our  lives  as  work  for  God 
done  in  a  wrong  and  superficial  spirit.  This  is  one  of 
the  places  where  I  am  most  anxious  that  the  right 
people  should  take  my  sermon  to  themselves,  and 
iiot  the  wrong  ones.  The  Scripture  reader,  the 
Sunday  School  teacher,  the  Evangelist,  the  minister, 
the  working  layman,  all  of  them  I  am  sure  have  felt 
how  religious  work  tries  to  push  out  religious 
thought  and  to  kill  the  soul's  receptivity.  Thought 
made  practical,  turned  into  duty,  tends  to  become 
like  air  turned  into  wind.     That  which  was  the  most 


234  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 

yielding  and  penetrable  of  all  substances,  becomes 
the  most  impenetrable.  There  is  no  man  whom  I 
should  less  hope  to  teach  the  deeper  spiritual  truth, 
or  to  lead  into  the  tenderest  communion  with  God, 
than  the  man  who  with  a  hard  set  doctrine  of  salva- 
tion is  most  intensely  devoted  to  the  salvation  of  his 
fellow-men.  The  disciples  as  well  as  the  stragglers 
from  Capernaum — perhaps  the  busy  disciples  more 
than  anybody  else  in  all  the  crowd — must  have 
needed  Christ's  call  to  sit  down  and  be  fed.  The 
more  earnestly  you  are  at  work  for  Jesus,  the  more 
you  need  times  when  what  you  are  doing  for  him 
passes  totally  out  of  your  mind,  and  the  only  thing 
worth  thinking  of  seems  to  be  what  He  is  doing  for 
you.  That  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  days  of  dis- 
couragement and  self-contempt  which  come  to  all  of 
us,  0  fellow  laborers  for  the  Lord. 

More  precious  then  perhaps  to  one  kind  of  worker 
than  to  another,  but  yet  precious  always  and  to  all, 
are  the  days  or  moments  when  the  flow  of  the  river 
slackens,  and  the  ocean  pours  itself  up  into  the 
stream.  I  wish  that  I  could  speak  effectively  to  all 
the  busy  young  men  here,  and  make  them  value 
those  moments  in  their  lives.  None  of  you  young 
men  are  so  busy  that  you  are  always  the  slaves  of 
your  trades  or  business.  You  have  your  evenings. 
You  have  your  Sundays.  You  have  stray  moments 
and  half-hours  here  and  there.  You  have  your  sick- 
ness now  and  then.  Make  them  times  for  the  real 
feeding  of  your  minds  and  souls.  Have  associates 
and  friends  outside  of  the  limits  of  your  own  profes- 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Down.  235 

sion,  as  able  and  intelligent  young  men  as  you  can 
find,  to  whom  life  means  other  things  from  what  it 
means  to  you,  and  who  can  help  you  to  enlarge  its 
meaning  for  yourself.  Be  interested  in  some  pur- 
suit which  will  take  you  into  quite  unfamiliar  fields. 
Make  yourself  at  home  in  the  Public  Library,  that 
great  organ-forest  of  sweet  and  solemn  and  in- 
spiring sounds,  which  will  speak  to  us  if  we  come  and 
sit  and  are  hungry  for  its  music.  Let  the  country, 
when  you  can,  scatter  the  cobwebs  of  the  city  out  of 
your  brain  and  send  you  back  to  its  richer  life  refreshed 
and  simplified.  Above  all,  let  the  peace  of  God,  the 
peace  of  trust  and  love,  the  peace  of  religion,  flow  in 
upon  your  consciousness  the  moment  that  business 
care  gives  it  a  moment's  freedom.  Whenever  neces- 
sary thought  of  self  gives  way  for  an  hour,  0  how 
good  it  is  if  the  thought  of  the  Father  instantly,  with- 
out waiting  to  be  summoned,  takes  possession  of  the 
child. 

And  now  it  is  time  for  us  to  see  whether  we  can- 
not go  a  little  deeper  into  our  subject  than  we  have 
gone  thus  far.  I  should  do  little  credit  to  your 
thoughtfulness  if  I  did  not  believe  that  you  had  felt 
the  difficulty  in  what  I  have  been  saying.  I  have 
pointed  out  how  the  active  life  needs  oftentimes  to 
stop  and  sit  down  and  become  receptive.  That  is  all 
true  enough ;  but  if  we  state  it  as  the  sum  of  the 
whole  matter,  we  feel  its  imperfection.  It  makes  a 
spotted  and  spasmodic  life,  a  life  which  is  forever  ex- 
pecting alternations  of  exhaustion  and  repair.  "  Go 
on,"  it  seems  to  say,  "  live  for  awhile  your  outgoing 


•36  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 


life,  and  then,  when  that  has  gone  on  long  enough, 
stop  and  accumulate  new  strength,  and  then  start 
out  and  use  it,"  and  so  go  on,  "  getting  and  spending ;" 
and  so  you  will  surely  in  the  end,  "  lay  waste  your 
powers."  It  makes  spiritual  supply  almost  like  the 
dinner  for  which  you  leave  your  workshop,  only  to 
hasten  back  to  the  place  of  toil  again  when  the  hur- 
ried meal  is  done. 

There  must  be  something  better  than  that.  The 
question  inevitably  rises  in  the  mind  of  any  active 
thinking  man,  Is  it  not  possible  instead  of  working 
and  resting,  to  rest  in  working,  so  that  in  the  very 
act  which  exhausts,  I  shall  get  my  renewal  and  sup- 
ply ?  How  good  that  would  be  !  That  would  make 
the  feeding  of  life  by  God,  the  divine  supply  of  life, 
to  be  not  like  the  eating  of  a  dinner,  which  is  excep- 
tional and  an  interruption  of  the  life,  but  like  the 
breathing  of  the  vital  air  which  is  going  on  all  the 
time,  and  is  not  done  deliberately,  or  as  a  special  act, 
but  does  itself,  as  it  were,  by  the  movement  of  those 
same  lungs  which  the  exercise  of  labor  sets  in  mo- 
tion. 

Let  us  see  whether  we  can  make  this  plain.  Here 
is  a  man  who,  we  may  say,  is  engaged  in  a  wholly 
secular  employment.  He  is  a  merchant  selling 
goods.  At  the  same  time  he  is  a  distinctly  and  de- 
voutly Christian  man.  He  loves  Christ,  and  knows 
that  he  must  have  Christ  for  his  helper  and  his 
friend.  But  all  the  day  he  is  completely  busy  at  his 
store.  He  knows  how  his  life  always  is  outgoing.  He 
longs  for  something  to  come  in,  something  diviner 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Dozvn.  237 

and  more  spiritual.  What  can  he  do  ?  Once  in 
awhile  he  turns  aside.  He  shuts  the  door.  He 
leaves  the  business  to  take  care  of  itself.  As  truly 
as  if  he  went  into  a  desert  cave,  he  goes  apart.  He 
makes  his  Sunday  genuinely  sacred.  He  consecrates 
his  hour  of  prayer.  What  happens  then?  The 
blessing  surely  comes.  The  ocean  hears  the  stopping 
of  the  stream,  and  knows  its  opportunity.  God 
comes  and  feeds  the  docile  and  expectant  life,  and  it 
goes  back  to  counting-house  and  counter,  stronger, 
purer,  greater.  That  is  very  good.  The  man  will 
sell  goods  more  nobly  for  the  peace  of  God  which  he 
has  gained  in  the  desert.  But  just  suppose  that  he 
did  not  have  to  go  to  the  desert  for  the  peace.  Sup- 
pose that  he  could  have  not  merely  used  devoutness, 
and  faith,  and  piety  in  the  store,  but  actually  gained 
them  there.  Suppose  that  in  the  compass  of  one 
single  specific  mercantile  transaction,  there  could 
actually  have  been  present  the  two  sides  of  this  man, 
one  alert,  watchful,  active,  standing  on  its  feet ;  the 
other  humble,  hungry,  receptive,  sitting  down  in  the 
very  compass  of  that  action  before  God :  would  not 
that  surely  have  been  better  ?  Would  it  not  have 
brought  the  food  nearer  to  the  hunger  ?  Would  it 
not  have  kept  the  man's  unity,  which  it  is  one  of  the 
worst  tendencies  of  life  to  divide  and  lose  ?  Would 
it  not  have  made  his  business  sacred  and  his  devotion 
intensely  practical  at  once  ? 

And  then  is  an  ordinary  business  action  possibly 
large  enough  to  be  thus  at  the  same  time  the  exer- 
cise of  the  merchant's  activity  and  also  the  medium 


238  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 


through  which  God  feeds  the  merchant's  soul  ?  Be- 
fore we  give  an  answer  to  that  question,  we  must 
stop  and  force  ourselves  to  remember  that  a  whole 
act  includes  its  motive.  An  act  of  yours  is  not  sim- 
ply the  thing  you  do.  It  is  also  the  reason  why  you 
do  it.  Make  the  conception  of  the  act  as  large  as 
that,  and  then  I  think  it  certainly  may  include  all  that 
I  said.  Why  are  you  selling  your  goods  ?  If  with- 
out falsehood  you  can  say,  "  Because  it  is  my  duty, 
in  order  that  I  may  maintain  my  family  and  serve 
my  generation  and  honor  God  by  usefulness,"  then 
certainly  the  act  opens  itself  and  becomes  a  Church. 
It  is  the  house  of  God.  It  is  the  gate  of  heaven. 
God  is  there  in  that  act ;  and  your  soul  doing  its  work 
for  Him,  is  humbly  in  His  presence ;  and  the  soul  can- 
not be  humbly  in  the  presence  of  God  without  being 
receptive  of  Him.  In  every  act  consciously  and  de- 
voutly done  for  God's  sake,  God  gives  himself  to  the 
soul  and  feeds  it,  in  the  act ;  not  after  it  and  in  re- 
ward of  it,  but  in  it. 

What  is  the  reason  then  that  our  ordinary  actions 
are  not  able  to  do  this,  at  the  same  time  to  exercise 
the  actor's  power  and  to  be  the  medium  through  which 
God  can  feed  the  actor's  soul?  Is  it  not  simply  that 
our  ordinary  act  is  not  complete  ?  It  is  not  the  whole 
act.  It  is  only  the  body  of  act,  and  not  the  soul. 
It  is  the  form  of  the  act,  without  the  motive.  That 
is  the  reason  why  it  is  too  small  to  hold  this  inflowing 
force  as  well  as  the  outgoing  influence.  Make  your 
most  simple  act  complete;  do  your  most  common 
daily  duty  from  its  divinest  motive,  and  what  a  change 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Down.  239 

will  come !  Still  your  life  will  need  days  of  retirement, 
when  it  will  shut  the  gates  upon  the  noisy  whirl  of 
action  and  be  alone  with  God.  But  it  will  not  be 
upon  them  that  it  will  mostly  depend  for  spiritual 
nourishment.  They  will  be  like  great  exceptional 
banquets  and  extraordinary  feasts  of  grace.  The 
daily  bread  of  spiritual  life,  the  ordinary  feeding  of 
the  soul  on  God,  which  really  makes  its  sustenance, 
will  be  in  the  perpetual  doing  of  the  works  of  life 
for  Him.  The  real  sitting  down  to  be  fed  will  be 
mysteriously  identical  with  the  most  eager  and 
energetic  standing  on  the  feet  to  do  His  will ! 

Behold  the  meeting  of  the  effective  and  the  recep- 
tive life.  I  told  about  the  East  all  given  to  contem- 
plation and  the  waiting  for  the  coming  God,  and 
of  the  West,  all  full  of  self-reliance  and  the  stir  of 
action.  The  Ganges  and  the  Mississippi,  what  dif- 
ferent scenes  of  human  life  they  see !  We  might 
have  seen  in  the  same  way  how  between  two  centu- 
ries of  the  same  race's  history,  or  between  two  men  in 
the  same  century,  or  between  two  moods  of  the  same 
man,  there  lies  this  picturesque  and  striking  differ- 
ence. One  is  energetic,  forever  sending  out  force 
upon  the  world.  The  other  is  receptive,  always 
drinking  in  influence  from  God.  Such  differences 
there  will  always  be.  But  behind  and  beneath  all 
such  differences,  there  will  always  be  this  other 
truth,  that  in  each  single  race,  or  age,  or  man,  or  act, 
if  the  fullest  life  were  there,  the  effective  and  the 
receptive  capacities  would  each  be  present,  and  the 
two  would  minister  to  one  another.     The  Ganges  and 


240  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 

the  Mississippi,  in  the  complete  world,  will  have  sub- 
terranean communication  with  each  other,  and  the 
two  together  will  unite  to  make  glad  the  city  of 
God.  Rest  and  action  in  the  experience  of  the  com- 
pletest  soul  are  not  antagonistic;  they  are  hardly 
distinct  from  one  auother.  Action  is  the  most 
refreshing  rest,  and  rest  is  in  some  sense  the  most 
effective  action  to  the  soul  that  lives  on  complete 
dependence  and  obedience  to  God. 

There  are  few  features  in  the  life  of  Jesus  which 
impress  me  more  than  this :  the  way  in  which  his 
work  and  his  growth,  his  effective  and  receptive  life 
went  on  together.  What  he  did  for  man  and  what  his 
Father  did  for  him,  were  not  separate  parts  of  his  life. 
They  were  enfolded  in  the  same  experiences.  True, 
there  were  times  when  he  withdrew  himself,  and, 
leaving  all  activity  behind,  lay  on  the  mountain 
days  and  nights,  passive  before  his  Father,  waiting  to 
be  more  completely  filled  with  him.  But  those  were 
rare,  exceptional  occasions.  The  ordinary  dependence 
upon  God  was  perfectly  expressed  by  those  words  to 
his  disciples,  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  him 
that  sent  me  ! "  When  he  gave  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  when  he  calmed  the  tempest  on  the  lake,  when 
he  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead,  we  do  not  doubt 
that  both  processes  were  going  on,  enfolded  in  the 
completeness  of  each  of  those  actions.  He  was  sav- 
ing the  world,  and  he  was  becoming  more  perfectly  his 
Father's  Son  at  once.  And  at  the  last,  what  is  it  that 
makes  the  perfect  wonder  of  the  cross  ?  Is  it  not  the 
double  assurance  that  in  those  agonies,  under  that 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Down.  241 

darkness,  the  world  is  being  redeemed  and  the  Son 
of  Man  is  being  glorified,  both  at  once.  The  "  It  is 
finished  "  told  of  the  completion  of  his  nature  and  the 
completion  of  his  work  together.  Nay,  it  is  even 
more  intimate  than  that.  The  completion  of  His  na- 
ture was  the  completion  of  his  work,  and  the  comple- 
tion of  his  work  was  the  completion  of  his  nature. 
He  could  not  have  completely  been  the  Son  of  God 
without  saving  the  world,  and  he  could  not  have 
completely  saved  the  world  without  being  complete- 
ly the  Son  of  God. 

So  labor  and  patience,  activity  and  the  growth 
which  comes  by  passive  suffering,  ought  always  to 
make  one  single  total  life.  Some  of  you  will  remem- 
ber how  in  the  old  church  at  Innsbruck,  among  the 
magnificent  bronze  people  who  stand  about  the  tomb 
of  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  is  the  great  Godfrey  of 
Boulogne,  the  illustrious  crusader.  Upon  his  head 
he  wears  his  helmet,  and  on  the  helmet  rests  a  crown 
of  thorns.  The  strange  conjunction  may  mean  many 
things.  No  doubt  the  crown  of  thorns  is  meant  to 
represent  the  sacred  cause,  the  rescue  of  the  place 
of  the  Lord's  crucifixion  and  burial,  for  which  the 
soldier  fought.  But  is  not  such  a  union  of  symbols 
a  perpetual  picture  ?  The  helmet  and  the  crown  of 
thorns!  Activity  and  suffering,  fighting  and  grow- 
ing, the  putting  forth  of  energy  and  the  drinking 
in  of  strength;  these  two  were  represented  not  as 
coming  in  by  turns,  not  as  chasing  one  another  into 
and  out  of  the  life,  but  as  abiding  together,  making 

one  temper,  filling  one  character.     The  helmet  and 
16 


242  Make  the  Men  Sit  Down. 

the  crown  of  thorns  worn  together  on  the  consecrat- 
ed head,  that  makes  the  noble,  useful,  growing  life. 

Is  not  this  essentially  the  great  promise  which  is 
given  us  about  the  eternal  blessedness?  We  are  told 
of  heaven,  that  there  is  no  temple  there  to  which 
the  worshippers  go  up.  There  will  be  no  turning 
aside  to  refresh  the  exhausted  reverence  and  faith 
and  love;  no  special  feast  times  in  the  everlasting 
festival,  but  in  the  very  acts  of  service  the  souls,  all 
afire  with  love  for  Him  they  serve,  shall  drink  His 
love  and  wisdom  into  their  open  natures.  "  His  ser- 
vants shall  serve  him,  and  his  name  shall  be  in  their 
foreheads."  The  effective  life  and  the  receptive  life 
are  one.  No  sweep  of  arm  that  does  some  work  for 
God  but  harvests  also  some  more  of  the  truth  of  God, 
and  sweeps  it  into  the  treasury  of  the  life. 

We  must  anticipate  heaven,  and  make  earth  as 
like  to  it  as  possible. 

May  not  two  lessons  come  to  us  out  of  what  I  have 
said  to-day  ? 

The  first  is  this.  Seek  your  life's  nourishment  in 
your  life's  work.  Do  not  think  that  after  you  have 
bought  or  sold  or  studied  or  taught,  you  will  go 
into  your  closet  and  open  your  Bible  and  repair  the 
damage  and  the  loss  which  your  day's  life  has  left 
you.  Do  those  things  certainly,  but  also  insist  that 
your  buying  or  selling  or  studying  or  teaching  shall 
itself  make  you  brave,  patient,  pure  and  holy  !  Do 
not  let  your  occupation  pass  you  by,  and  only  leave 
you  the  basest  and  poorest  of  its  benefits,  the  money 
with  which  it  fills  your  purse.     Compel   it  to  give 


Make  the  Men  Sit  Down.  243 

up  to  you  the  charity  and  faith  and  character  and 
godliness  which  it  has  at  its  heart,  which  it  hides 
charily,  but  which  it  must  give  to  you  if  you  insist 
upon  it  and  are  able  to  receive  it. 

The  other  lesson  is :  Make  your  most  restful  con- 
templation and  your  most  receptive  listening  at  the 
lips  of  God,  not  to  be  mere  spiritual  luxuries,  but  to 
be  forms  and  modes  of  action.  Make  them  acts.  Let 
them  call  your  powers  into  play.  Let  them  be  not 
listless,  but  full  of  vigor.  Let  them  anticipate  work 
for  God  and  service  of  his  children  so  earnestly  and 
eagerly,  that  they  themselves  shall  be  work  and 
service. 

He  who  learns  these  lessons  lives  a  life  as  deep 
as  the  ocean  and  as  powerful.  There  is  no  tedium 
or  fretfulness  for  him.  His  life  catches  the  quality 
of  the  life  of  God.  He  works  while  it  is  called  to- 
day, and  yet  he  has  already  reached  the  rest  which 
remaineth  for  God's  people.  Such  lives  may  God 
help  us  to  live. 


SERMON  XIV. 

uHe  hath  made  everything  beautiful  in  his  time." 
Ecclesiastes  iii.  11. 

FITNESS  or  timeliness  is  one  strong  element  in 
every  idea  of  beauty.  A  place  for  everything 
and  everything  in  its  place,  a  time  for  everything 
and  everything  in  its  time,  these  are  the  principles 
that  lie  at  the  bottom  of  that  enjoyment  of  things 
which  we  call  a  sense  of  beauty.  There  is  nothing 
which  has  such  absolute  self-contained  loveliness 
that  we  can  say  of  it  that  it  would  be  lovely  every- 
where and  always.  Put  it  into  certain  surround- 
ings, throw  certain  lights  upon  it  and  it  would  seem 
ugly.  The  writer  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  re- 
verses this  truth,  gives  us  the  other  side  of  it.  He 
says  that  there  is  nothing  so  essentially  unbeautiful 
that,  put  into  its  true  place  and  time,  it  would  not 
become  beautiful.  The  disorder  of  the  universe,  the 
things  that  shock  us  and  distress  us  and  disgust  us 
in  it,  come  not  from  the  essential  badness  of  the 
material  of  the  universe,  but  from  its  dislocations. 

It  is  in  the  disarrangement  of  what  needs  arrange- 
244 


Timeliness.  245 


ment.  It  is  the  stoppage  of  the  machine  by  some 
part  of  its  own  machinery  which  has  wrenched  itself 
out  of  position  and  got  between  the  wheels.  It  is 
the  spoiling  of  the  picture  by  the  casting  of  the 
strong  color  here  which  was  needed  there.  These 
are  what  make  the  mischief  in  the  world  and  what 
destroy  its  beauty.  Our  own  instincts  of  beauty 
recognize  the  law.  They  demand  harmony  and 
timeliness  and  fitness.  They  are  not  chained  to  any 
conventional  standards.  They  are  willing  to  see 
things  in  new  arrangements,  provided  they  are  rec- 
ognized when  they  are  seen  as  natural  and  fit 
arrangements.  But  the  shock  and  startle  which 
comes  from  the  sight  of  unnatural  arrangements,  from 
seeing  things  out  of  place,  this  the  pure  taste  dis- 
criminates at  once,  and  knows  that  what  creates  it  is 
not  beautiful  but  grotesque,  and  that  the  pleasure, 
if  it  gives  any,  is  not  healthy. 

The  necessity  of  timeliness  or  fitness  to  the  truest 
beauty,  and  the  beauty  of  everything  in  its  true 
time  and  place,  these  then  are  the  two  sides  of  the 
truth  of  which  I  wish  to  speak  to-day.  I  will  not 
speak  abstractly.  I  will  come  closely  enough  to 
practical  matters  of  our  daily  life.  It  is  a  truth 
which  has  its  applications  everywhere.  It  touches 
what  we  may  almost  dare  to  call  the  responsibility 
of  God.  If  the  good  and  evil,  the  benefit  and  harm 
of  things  is  not  in  things  themselves,  but  in  the  places 
where  they  are  put,  then  not  on  God  who  made  the 
things  of  which  the  world  is  full,  but  upon  man,  who 
with  his  free  will  is  always  shifting  things  to  suit  him- 


246  Timeliness. 


self,  must  lie  the  blauie  of  the  injury  things  do  him. 
You  lay  your  own  stumbling  block  in  your  own  way. 
God  made  the  block  indeed,  but  He  made  it  for  a 
part  of  the  strength  and  beauty  of  the  walls.  It  was 
you  who  dragged  it  down  to  the  floor  and  insisted 
upon  laying  where  you  could  stumble  over  it. 

And  again  it  touches  the  old  question  of  failure  or 
success  in  life.  It  lets  us  see  why  it  is  very  often 
not  the  best  furnished  but  the  best  arranged  life  that 
succeeds,  not  the  richest  but  the  most  timely  life; 
which  is  something  that  so  often  puzzles  us. 

And  again  it  knits  things  into  an  interdependence 
with  one  another  which  is  pleasing  to  the  human 
mind.  It  rescues  the  universe  from  fragmentariness 
and  shows  us  how  "all  is  needed  by  every  one, 
nothing  is  good  or  fair  alone."  In  all  these  ways  this 
truth,  that  everything  is  beautiful  in  its  time,  and 
nothing  is  beautiful  out  of  its  time,  comes  close  home 
to  our  lives. 

And  one  thing  is  very  striking  about  this  truth, 
which  indeed  is  characteristic  always  of  the  highest 
truths,  that  it  becomes  more  manifestly  true  in 
things  in  proportion  as  their  nature  rises.  It  is  less 
manifest  in  the  lower,  and  more  manifest  in  the 
higher  natures.  See  what  I  mean.  Everything  in 
the  world  must  be  in  its  true  place  and  time,  or  it  is 
not  beautiful.  That  is  true  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest;  only  with  the  lowest  it  is  not  easy  to  dis- 
cover it.  It  does  not  seem  to  matter  where  the  peb- 
ble lies,  on  this  side  of  the  road  or  on  the  other.  It 
may  indeed  do  sad  mischief  out  of  its  place ;  but  its 


Timeliness.  247 


place  is  a  wide  one.  It  may  lie  in  many  spots  and 
do  no  harm,  and  seem  to  show  all  the  beauty  and 
render  all  the  use  of  which  it  is  capable.  But  the 
things  of  higher  nature  are  more  fastidious  in  their 
demands.  The  plant  must  have  its  proper  soil  to 
feed  its  roots  upon,  or  its  bright  flowers  lose  their 
beauty,  and  even  there,  only  in  one  short  happy  sea- 
son of  the  year  is  it  in  its  glory,  while  the  pebble 
keeps  its  lustre  always.  Higher  still,  comes  the  ani- 
mal, and  he  has  more  needs  which  must  be  met,  more 
arrangements  that  must  be  made,  a  more  definite 
place  in  which  he  must  be  set,  before  he  can  do  his 
best.  Some  sort  of  a  home  to  live  in,  some  faint  be- 
ginning of  society,  some  growth  and  education,  bring 
him  to  his  best  beasthood.  And  then  highest  of  all 
comes  man,  and  with  his  highest  life  comes  the  com- 
pletest  dependence  upon  circumstances.  He  is  the 
least  independent  creature  on  the  earth.  The  most 
beautiful  in  his  right  time  and  place,  he  is  the  most 
wretched  and  miserable  out  of  it.  He  is  the  most 
liable  to  be  thrown  out  of  place  of  all  the  creatures. 
He  must  have  all  the  furnishings  of  life,  friendships, 
family,  ambitions,  cultures  of  every  kind,  or  his  best 
is  not  attained. 

And  this  same  law  holds  between  different  kinds 
of  men.  The  highest  natures  are  most  dependent 
upon  timeliness  and  fitness.  They  must  t  act  at  the 
right  moment.  There  are  such  things  as  right  mo- 
ments for  them.  Have  you  not  been  often  struck  by 
seeing  how  a  commonplace  and  ordinary  man  will 
fall  in  with  the  world  anywhere,  and  make  himself 


248  Timeliness. 


at  home  and  be  at  ease  and  use  his  powers  very  sat- 
isfactorily, while  a  man  far  his  superior  will  stand 
waiting  and  awkward,  apparently  quite  unable   to 
get  to  work,  until,  by-and-by,  all  of  a  sudden,  his  op- 
portunity arrives,  and  instinctively  he  knows  it  and 
falls  to  work,  and  in  an  hour  has  done  more  than  the 
other  did  in  days.     It  is  not  mere  fastidiousness. 
It  is  not  conceit.     Fastidiousness  and  conceit  are  the 
shams  and  imitations  of  which  this  is  the  genuine. 
Fastidiousness  betrays  itself  by  its  self-consciousness 
and  by  its  unwillingness  to  step  in,  even  when  the 
true  time  has  come.     We  all  know  this  difference  of 
men.     There  are  men  about  us  who  we  feel  might 
have  lived  at  any  age  from  Abraham's  time  down  to 
ours,  and  they  would  have  been  just  as  much  at  home 
in  any  of  the  strange  old  centuries  as  they  are  here. 
A  little  change  of  dress,  a  little  different  manners,  a 
different  language,  and  that  would  be  all  the  altera- 
tion.    But  there  are  other  men  whom  you  cannot 
transfer.     They  belong  here  and  now.     You  are  sure 
that  in  any  other  time  their  lives  must  have  been 
hampered   and   dumb.     Now   they   find   voice   and 
power,  because  their  time  is  come. 

When  the  great  feast  was  ready  at  Jerusalem,  and 
the  brethren  of  Jesus  were  going  up  from  Nazareth, 
as  they  went  every  year,  they  urged  Jesus  to  go  with 
them.  And  his  answer  was,  "  My  time  is  not  yet 
come,  but  your  time  is  always  ready."  There  was 
something  so  sad  and  so  noble  in  his  words.  They, 
with  no  recognized  mission,  might  go  when  and 
where  they  would.     They,  with  no  burden  on  their 


Timeliness.  249 


shoulders,  might  walk  freely  over  the  whole  earth. 
But  he,  with  his  task,  his  duty,  his  Father's  name  to 
glorify,  his  brethren's  souls  to  save,  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  set  up,  he  must  wait  till  the  door  opened. 
He  could  walk  only  where  the  way  was  wide  enough 
for  him  to  pass  with  his  burden.  Nothing  can  be 
farther  from  the  coveted  ideal  which  hangs  before 
the  eyes  of  multitudes  of  our  young  men,  the  easy, 
ready  man  of  the  world,  who  is  at  home  anywhere, 
with  a  conscience  that  can  pass  through  any  crack, 
with  convictions  that  can  turn  to  any  color,  with  the 
self-possession  that  succeeds  everywhere  ;  nothing 
can  be  farther  from  him  than  Jesus  was,  with  his 
clear  purposes  and  strong  truth  and  mission  of  God. 
O  that  you  all  could  learn  that !  Such  universal 
popularity,  such  universal  adaptability  is  not  the 
highest  character  or  life.  As  you  emphasize  your 
life,  you  must  localize  and  define  it.  The  more  truly 
and  earnestly  you  come  to  do  anything,  the  more 
clearly  you  will  see  that  you  cannot  do  everything. 
He  who  is  truly  good  must  be  good  for  something. 
To  be  good  for  everything  is  to  be  good  for  nothing. 
The  strength  of  a  life  makes  up  for  and  glorifies  its 
specialness.  The  dog  with  his  kennel  full  mocks  at 
the  lion  with  his  solitary  whelp.  "Yes,  only  one,  but 
a  lion,"  answers  the  proud  beast.  Always  the  higher 
a  life  is,  the  more  it  is  beautiful  in  its  place,  and  can 
be  beautiful  nowhere  else. 

It  belongs  then  to  the  highest  and  most  gifted 
lives,  to  seek  their  places  in  the  world.  It  is  the 
prerogative  of  their  superiority.     Surely  it  would  be 


250  Timeliness. 


good  for  men  if  they  could  learn  this  early.  It 
would  scatter  many  delusions.  It  would  dissipate 
the  folly  of  universal  genius.  The  tendency  of  our 
time  is  to  special  education,  to  find  what  every  man 
is  fit  for  and  to  train  him  specially  for  that.  It  may 
be  carried  to  excess.  It  may  be  made  too  narrow. 
In  their  desire  for  special  culture  men  may  cut  off 
those  streams  of  education  which,  flowing  in  from 
distant  regions  upon  every  side,  supply  and  feed  the 
current  of  the  special  life.  The  special  life  may  be 
too  narrowly  conceived.  That  is  of  course  the  dan- 
ger. But  still  we  cannot  help  rejoicing  in  the  in- 
creasing prominence  of  the  idea  that  every  being 
whom  the  world  contains  has  his  true  place,  written 
in  the  very  make  of  his  nature,  and  that  to  find  that 
place  and  fill  it  is  success  for  him.  To  help  him  find 
that  place  and  make  him  fit  to  fill  it,  is  the  duty  of 
his  educators  in  all  their  various  degrees. 

Such  an  idea  is  always  tending  to  become  religious, 
is  always  on  the  brink  of  faith.  It  does  not  seem 
possible  for  men  to  permanently  hold  it  and  yet  be 
satisfied  with  a  chance-governed  world.  Who  made 
the  nature  and  the  work  for  one  another  ?  Who 
touched  the  unborn  soul  and  the  undone  task  with 
such  harmonious  colors  that,  when  by-and-by  they 
met,  their  colors  recognized  each  other,  and  blended 
into  a  beauty  of  active  life,  which  all  the  world  could 
see  ?  The  whole  idea  is  full  of  God.  Men  may  state 
it  as  atheistically  as  they  will,  they  cannot  get  God 
out  of  it.  Like  every  assertion  of  order  in  the  uni- 
verse, it  must  ultimately  be  an  assertion  of  Him. 


Timeliness.  251 


And  then  again,  the  constant  holding  of  such  an 
idea  about  a  man's  own  life  is  always  tending  to 
make  a  man  personally  religious.  The  man  who 
thinks  he  is  an  accident,  and  has  no  place,  grows 
flippant  with  his  life.  But  all  that  made  the  lives 
of  Moses  and  David,  John  and  Paul  and  Luther,  seri- 
ous, responsible,  devout,  comes  to  the  humblest  man 
who  is  able  to  believe  in  a  true  place,  a  true  calling 
for  himself.  It  must  come  to  the  whole  world,  mak- 
ing it  lofty,  earnest,  tuning  its  whole  music  to  a 
higher  key,  when  this  truth  of  the  beauty,  the  neces- 
sity of  timeliness  shall  grow  everywhere  clear. 

So  seek  your  place  and  fill  it.  You  know  the  sat- 
isfactory feeling  that  we  all  have  when  one  of  the 
universal  men  who  has  been  good  at  everything  and 
so  good  for  nothing,  who  has  been  slipping  about 
loosely  over  the  surface  of  life,  in  everybody's  way, 
for  years,  at  last  suddenly  finds  the  hollow  he  was 
made  for  and  drops  into  it  and  fits  it.  It  is  an  im- 
mense satisfaction  and  relief.  Perhaps  it  seems  at 
first  as  if  he  had  disappeared  ;  but  by-and-by  we 
find  that  he  has  been  taken  up  by  the  great  system 
of  life  and  made  a  portion  of  it.  His  movement  be- 
comes orderly,  makes  part  of  the  universal  rhythm. 
He  has  found  his  time  and  place,  and  become  beauti- 
ful. There  are  children  in  your  households,  boys  in 
your  schools,  the  very  best  boys  there,  who  make  the 
most  trouble  because,  being  the  best  boys,  the  larg- 
est, strongest  characters,  they  most  need  to  find 
their  place.  They  most  truly  have  a  place  to  find. 
The   average  commonplace  boy  fits  in  almost  any- 


252  Timeliness. 


where,  and  makes  no  trouble.  But  in  that  grace- 
less, awkward,  interfering  character  there  is  the 
real  pivot,  which  if  you  can  help  into  its  right  place, 
will  help  to  hold  the  structure  of  the  world  together 
and  let  many  other  characters  revolve  upon  it. 

So  much  we  say  of  men,  of  human  beings  in  or 
out  of  their  true  place  and  time.  But  let  us  now 
pass  on  to  something  else.  Let  us  go  on  to  see  how 
everything,  all  the  events  of  life,  all  of  God's  dis- 
pensations, get  their  real  beauty  or  ugliness  from  the 
times  in  which  they  come  to  us  or  in  which  we 
come  to  them.  We  are  always  giving  things  abso- 
lute arbitrary  characters.  This  thing  is  good,  that 
thing  is  bad,  we  say;  but  really  badness  or  goodness, 
beauty  or  ugliness  are  not  in  things  themselves,  but 
in  the  ways  those  things  relate  themselves  to  us. 
Look  at  trouble,  look  at  temptation.  They  are  not 
beautiful,  surely,  we  say.  The  calm  soul,  living  its 
peaceful  life  upon  the  sunny  plain,  gathering  its 
flowers,  singing  its  gentle  songs,  sees  stalking  up 
towards  it,  hiding  the  sunlight  from  it,  casting  its 
shadow  far  before  itself,  the  great  figure  of  a  com- 
ing woe.  Does  it  seem  beautiful  ?  Can  the  arms 
open  to  welcome  it  ?  See  how  the  form  withers 
and  seems  to  shrink,  drops  in  upon  itself  with  terror 
as  the  trouble  comes  on  pitilessly.  But  by-and-by 
when  it  has  come,  when  the  soul  smitten  by  it  has 
had  to  lay  hold  with  new  strength  on  Christ,  when 
the  superficial  things  of  life  have  all  been  blown 
away  and  the  real  precious  things  of  life  have  been 
displayed  anew  under  the  tempest — what  then  ?     Is 


Timeliness.  253 


there  no  beauty  in  the  trouble  then  ?  Ask  many  a 
heart  who  never  knew  what  spiritual  beauty  was  un- 
til it  saw  it  under  the  form  of  timely  sorrow. 

Even  punitive  sorrow,  punishment,  has  a  beauty 
about  it  which  men  are  not  slow  to  feel.  When  a 
man  has  been  sinning  and  sinning  on,  and  when  at 
last  an  exposure  and  pain  comes,  and  then  by  the 
shame  and  purification  of  that  suffering  another  life 
begins,  is  there  anything  more  beautiful  than  that 
pain  standing  there  "  in  his  place  "  between  the  old 
life  and  the  new,  between  the  sin  and  the  restoral  ? 
It  is  beautiful  with  reference  to  the  past.  It  satis- 
fies man's  feeling  about  the  necessary  consequence 
of  sin,  and  it  is  beautiful  with  reference  to  the  future. 
It  clears  the  field  for  the  new  things  that  are  to 
come. 

If  there  is  one  thing  especially  of  which  many 
people  cannot  possibly  believe  that  under  any 
circumstances  it  should  seem  beautiful,  I  suppose 
it  must  be  death.  That  must  be  always  dreadful. 
Men  seldom  see  any  misery  in  life  so  great  as  to 
outweigh  the  misery  of  leaving  it.  But  yet  it  comes 
to  all  of  us  that  He  who  made  death  made  it 
like  all  things  else  to  be  beautiful  in  his  place  and 
time.  When  a  life  has  lived  its  days  out  in 
happiness,  grown  old  with  constantly  accumulating 
joys,  and  then  at  last,  before  decay  has  touched  it 
or  the  ground  grows  soft  under  its  feet,  the  door 
opens  and  it  enters  into  the  new  youth  of  eternity: 
when  a  young  man  has  tried  his  powers  here  and 
dedicated  them  to  God,  and  then  is  called  to  the  full 


254  Timeliness. 


use  of  their  perfected  strength  in  the  very  presence 
of  the  God  whom  he  has  loved:  when  a  man  has 
lived  for  his  brethren,  and  the  time  comes  that  his 
life  cannot  help  them  any  longer,  but  his  death  can 
put  life  into  dead  truths  and  send  enthusiasm  into 
fainting  hearts:  when  death  comes  as  rest  to  a  man 
who  is  tired  with  a  long  fight,  or  as  victory  to  a 
man  who  leaves  his  enemies  baffled  behind  him  on 
the  shore  of  time,  in  all  these  times  is  not  death 
beautiful?  "Nothing  in  all  his  life  became  this 
man  like  his  leaving  it,"  they  said  of  one  who  died. 

Look  at  the  death  of  Christ.  Men  said,  "  It  is  terri- 
ble. It  is  disgraceful."  Christ  himself  shrank  and 
trembled  at  it.  It  was  what  we  call  a  violent,  an  un- 
timely death,  but  it  was  really  in  its  true  time,  and 
all  the  world  has  felt  its  beauty.  For  Jesus  it  was 
victory  and  peace.  For  the  world  it  was  salvation 
and  new  life.  On  the  evening  of  Good  Friday,  in 
spite  of  all  their  pain  and  disappointment,  His  mother 
and  disciples  must  have  begun  to  feel  already  how 
beautiful  it  was. 

We  transport  ourselves  to  God's  standpoint  and 
imagine  how  He  must  think  about  it  all.  To  Him,  see- 
ing the  whole,  seeing  both  worlds,  the  passage  from 
one  to  the  other  must  be  as  natural  as  is  the  passage 
from  one  period  of  this  life  to  another.  A  man  may 
be  unprepared  for  it,  and  so  the  passage  from  boy- 
hood into  manhood  may  be  a  dreadful,  ruinous  thing. 
A  man  may  be  unprepared  for  it,  and  so  the  passage 
from  time  into  eternity  maybe  dreadful  and  ruinous, 
like  any  other  passage,  but  in  itself  not   one   more 


Timeliness.  255 


than  the  other.  One,  like  the  other,  is  the  summons 
of  God,  to  come  on,  to  come  up,  to  something  richer, 
larger,  more  complete. 

One  law  applies  in  full  to  the  coming  of  different 
stages  in  the  life  of  man.  Each  period  of  life  is 
beautiful  in  its  time.  Old  age  is  beautiful  when 
men  are  really  old,  and  youth  when  men  are  really 
young;  but  everybody  feels  the  lack  of  beauty  when 
the  character  of  either  period  is  transferred  into 
the  years  of  the  other.  A  precocious  boy  and  a 
young  old  man  alike  repel  us  with  an  incongruity. 
This  is  why  boys  shun  their  companion  who  is  sol- 
emn and  wise  beyond  his  years,  and  men  laugh  at  a 
man  who  does  not  know  how  to  grow  old,  but  keeps 
the  ways  of  youthfulness  long  atterthe  freshness  of 
youth  which  gave  them  all  their  charm  is  past.  It 
seems  as  if  life  might  all  be  so  simple  and  so  beauti- 
ful, so  good  to  live,  so  good  to  look  at,  if  we  could 
only  think  of  it  as  one  long  journey,  where  every  day's 
march  had  its  own  separate  sort  of  beauty  to  travel 
through;  and  so  if  we  could  go  on  clinging  to  no 
past,  accepting  every  new  present  as  it  comes,  find- 
ing everything  beautiful  in  its  time,  and  suiting  our- 
selves to  each  new  beauty  with  continual  growth. 
And  that  can  come  to  pass  in  the  soul  that  really 
loves  and  lives  in  a  living,  loving  God. 

There  are  continual  applications  of  our  truth — the 
necessity  of  timeliness  to  beauty — in  the  religious  life. 
"Everything  beautiful  in  his  time,"  says  God.  Then 
each  experience  of  Christian  life  is  good  and  comely 
in  its  true  place,  when  it   comes  in  the  orderly 


256  Timeliness. 


sequences  of  Christian  growth,  and  only  there ;  not 
beautiful  wnen  it  comes  artificially,  forced  in  where 
it  does  not  belong.  It  would  do  many  Christians 
great  good  to  learn  that  truth.  A  young  Christian, 
just  beginning  the  new  life,  earnest  and  glowing  and 
immature,  loving  Christ  deeply,  but  not  having  yet 
fathomed  his  helpfulness,  hears  some  old  saint  tell- 
ing of  the  calm  trust  in  the  Saviour  which  has  grown 
strong  in  long  experience  of  guidance  and  mercy. 
The  ardent  boy,  full  of  his  hopes  and  fears,  gazes 
upon  that  tranquil  peace,  and  is  fascinated  by  it. 
He  wonders  why  it  is  not  his.  Perhaps  he  tries  to 
make  believe  that  it  is  his,  to  drill  himself  into  an 
imitation  of  it.  But  no!  Everything  in  its  time! 
That  is  the  grace  of  ripened  life.  It  will  not  come 
to  the  young  experience.  The  efforts  to  make  it 
come,  the  imitations  of  it,  are  unreal  and  bad. 

And  so  again  the  other  way.  The  aged  Christian, 
full  of  the  peace  of  eventide,  with  the  long  shadows 
lying  back  upon  the  life  that  he  has  lived,  will  often 
grow  anxious  and  discouraged  because  the  glow  and 
thrill  and  eagerness  of  his  first  faith  has  passed 
away.  This  simply  trusting  Christ  and  resting  in 
his  love,  seems  dull  and  spiritless,  beside  the  excited 
fervor  of  his  first  conversion.  And  so  with  some 
galvanic  movement,  he  tries  to  reproduce  the  quick 
excited  activity  which  he  remembers. 

So  the  soul  that  God  has  been  training  into  happy 
confidence  sees  another  soul  which  God  has  been 
shaking  with  alarms,  and  reproaches  itself  because 
it  is  so  tranquil,  fears  because  it  cannot  fear. 


Timeliness. 


257 


So  the  soul  which  God  is  training  in  solitude 
thinks  its  life  wasted  because  it  is  cut  off  from 
society,  and  the  soul  that  God  keeps  in  the  very 
midst  of  its  fellows  sighs  for  the  joy  and  culture  of 
being  alone. 

If  we  could  only  know  that  in  its  time  only  is  any 
Christian  mood  or  condition  beautiful,  and  that  God 
only  knows  its  time  !  When  the  day  is  over  the 
stars  will  come,  and  then  it  is  good  to  see  them;  but 
to  see  them  before  that,  in  the  sunlight,  you  must  go, 
men  say,  down  to  the  bottom  of  a  well,  where  you  do 
not  belong,  which  is  unnatural  and  unhealthy.  When 
we  have  done  with  earth  the  heaven  will  come;  and, 
till  that,  only  such  heaven — and  it  is  not  a  little — as  is 
possible  upon  the  dear  old  earth. 

We  ought  to  learn  everywhere  not  to  value  moods 
for  their  own  sakes,  and  so  not  to  try  to  produce 
them.  They  are  mere  symptoms.  Not  symptoms, 
but  disease  and  health,  are  the  important  things. 
People  are  always  setting  their  hearts  on  one  partic- 
ular grace  or  quality,  and  thinking  that  it  is  the  per- 
fect character,  and  so  cultivating  it  and  practicing 
it  in  the  same  form  under  all  circumstances  indis- 
criminately. That  is  what  makes  the  one-sided  and 
misshapen  men  that  we  see  everywhere.  One  man 
says,  "  Self-reliance  is  a  noble,  manly  thing,"  and 
so  his  whole  notion  of  strong  life  is  to  be  self-reliant 
everywhere,  and  he  becomes  totally  nndocile  and 
arrogant.  He  is  as  self-reliant  in  forming  his  ideas 
about  the  truths  of  God  and  eternity,  as  he  is  in  de- 
ciding about  a  turn  of  the  market  or  the  chances  of 
17 


258  Timeliness. 


a  bargain.  His  self-reliance  ceases  to  be  respectable, 
and  grows  distressing  when  it  stands  up  unabashed 
in  the  presence  of  the  most  sacred  mysteries. 

Or,  it  may  be,  doubt  and  hesitation  seem  beautiful 
to  you — as  sometimes  indeed  they  are — but  you  take 
it  for  granted  that  they  are  always  good,  and  by-and- 
by,  you  are  weak  where  you  ought  to  be  strong;  you 
are  hesitating  where  you  ought  to  be  acting.  And 
all  the  world  is  sneering  at  you,  and  you  deserve  its 
sneers. 

Or  levity,  which  has  its  graceful  places  among 
pleasant  trifling  things,  is  brought  in  among  sa- 
cred and  awful  truths,  and  how  ugly  its  jesting  face 
and  tinsel  dress  and  tinkling  bells  appear  ! 

Or  subtlety,  which  has  its  province  in  curious 
questions  of  the  intellect,  begins  to  meddle  with  the 
clear  questions  of  the  conscience,  with  principle, 
with  right  and  wrong,  and  it  is  disagreeable  and  re- 
pulsive. 

No !  no  one  mood  is  the  whole  character.  Truth, 
courage,  these  are  universal;  but  the  moods  that 
these  create  are  always  changing.  The  same  truth- 
fulness which  makes  a  man  bold  at  one  time,  will 
make  him  fearful  at  another.  What  we  need  is  to 
be  simply  courageous  and  truthful  men,  and  let  the 
forms  in  which  our  manhood  shows  itself  freely  vary 
with  the  varying  circumstances,  each  beautiful  in  its 
own  time.  We  may  lose  what  men  call  consistency, 
but  we  shall  keep  what  is  better — truth  and  free- 
dom, without  which  there  can  be  no  growth. 

Again,  it  seems  as  if  this  truth  of  ours  lay  at  the 


Timeliness.  259 


bottom  of  any  clear  notion  about  the  character  of  sin. 
We  say  that  we  are  sinful,  but  really  we  are  always 
passing  over  the  essential  sinfulness  into  the  things 
around  us.     It  is  these  wicked  things  that  make  us 
wicked.     But  here  comes  up  our  truth,  that  there  are 
no  wicked  things ;  that  wickedness  is  not  in  things, 
but  in  the  displacement  and  misuse  of  things ;  that 
there  is  nothing  which,  kept  in  its  true  place  and  put 
to  its  true  use,  is  not  beautiful  and  good.     Here  is  a 
man  who  says  his  business  makes  him  selfish.     Cow- 
ard that  he  is,  he  meanly  lays  the  blame  of  his  mean 
life  upon  his  merchandise  and  ledgers.     But  no  such 
pretense  will  pass.     In  the  next  store  to  him  there 
is  a  brother  merchant,  who  out  of  just  the  same  bus- 
iness, has  been  growing  charitable  and  generous  and 
larger-hearted  every  year.     Here  is  a  woman  who 
says  that  society  is  responsible  for  her  frivolousness ; 
that  no  one  can  be  purely  earnest  who  lives  in  the 
midst   of  this  fashionable  world.     But  some   other 
woman  by  her  side  confutes  her,  for  she  has  shown 
how  full  social  life  may  fill  the  character  of  what  is 
best  and  sacredest.     Here  is  a  man  who  tells   me 
that  no  student  of  physical  science  can  be  cognizant 
of  spiritual  life  or  reverent  of  spiritual  forces.     On 
his  rocks  and  bones  he  lays  the  blame  of  his  godless- 
ness.     But  some  reverent  disciple  of  a  spiritual  mas- 
ter convicts  him,  as  he  shows  how  from  the  deepest 
study  of  the  laws  of  God,  the  soul  may  come  to  an 
ever  profounder  faith  in  the  God  of  law.     In  every 
case  we  wretchedly  impute  sin  to  things.     But  when 
we  once  are  taught  that  things  cannot  be  sinful — that 


260  Timeliness. 


sin  is  a  quality  which  can  only  belong  to  wills — 
then  back  upon  our  wills  falls  the  stigma  which  we 
have  tried  to  cast  off  on  the  inanimate  material  with 
which  we  have  to  do.  The  much  abused  things  seem 
to  lift  up  their  heads  and  fling  back  the  disgrace 
which  we  have  tried  so  ignominiously  to  shift  from 
ourselves  to  them.  The  shops  cry  out  indignantly, 
"We  do  not  make  the  misers."  Society  declares,  "I 
do  not  make  the  triflers."  The  rocks  and  bones  pro- 
test, "  We  do  not  make  the  atheists."  They  all  hold 
up  the  noble  uses  to  which  they  might  have  been 
put,  and  say,  "  Who  was  it  that  chose  to  prostitute 
us  and  degrade  us?"  Back  on  the  wills  of  men, 
where  it  belongs,  falls  the  responsibility  of  sin,  and 
the  convicted  soul,  instead  of  going  about  any  longer 
complaining  that  God  has  put  it  into  such  a  wicked 
world,  and  abusing  the  sinfulness  of  things,  owns 
its  own  wickedness,  and  in  clear-sighted,  manly  pen- 
itence cries  out,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner." 

This  last  idea  has  its  encouraging  and  hopeful  side. 
The  soul,  wanting  to  get  away  from  sin,  has  not  to 
make  its  escape  out  of  a  wilderness  of  sinful  things, 
in  whose  midst  it  is  impossible  to  be  good.  The 
sin  is  in  the  man  himself.  He  must  be  changed,  and 
then  these  things  about  him,  just  the  same  things 
still,  change  also  with  his  altered  life.  He  finds 
them  capable  of  unguessed  uses.  The  hammer  with 
whichhe  once  destroyed,  andin  which  it  seemed  to  him 
as  if  the  spirit  of  destruction  lay,  he  finds  now  yield- 
ing easily  to  his  new  desire  to  build.  How  deep  the 
old  story  of  Genesis   goes !     The   earth   which    sin 


Timeliness.  261 

turned  to  a  wilderness,  holiness  turns  back  again 
into  a  garden!  For  sin  and  holiness  are  not  in  things, 
but  in  souls ;  and  all  things  are  beautiful  in  the  time 
when  a  soul  uses  them  for  holy  uses  with  a  loving, 
humble,  and  obedient  life. 

Let  this  be  then  the  word  with  which  we  close. 
The  human  soul  sits  at  the  centre  of  everything,  and 
Christ  sits  at  the  centre  of  the  human  soul.  If  he 
changes  us,  then  everything  will  be  changed  to  us. 
"  He  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne  saith,  Behold  I 
make  all  things  new !  "  If  the  world  is  ugly  and 
bitter  and  cruel  to  you :  if  circumstances  taunt  and 
persecute  you:  if  everything  you  touch  is  a  strain 
and  a  temptation,  do  not  stand  idly  wishing  that 
the  world  were  changed.  The  change  must  be  in 
you.  To  the  new  heart  all  things  shall  be  new.  The 
new  man  shall  see  already  the  new  heaven  and  the 
new  earth.  If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new 
creature;  and  the  new  creature  is  immediately  in 
the  new  creation.  Some  of  you  know  already  by 
daily  experience  what  that  means.  And  for  all  of 
you,  it  waits  to  be  revealed,  if  you  will  let  Christ  do 
His  work  in  you. 


SERMON XV. 

Wht  £mxft  foatM  in  <§emn. 

"For  my  sword  shall  be  bathed  in  heaven." — Isaiah  xxxiv.  5. 

IN  a  magnificent  passage  of  his  prophecy,  Isaiah  is 
denouncing  the  anger  of  God  against  the  ene- 
mies of  His  people  and  His  purposes.  Jehovah  Him- 
self speaks  in  the  glowing  verse.  The  imagery  is 
tremendous.  "Their  slain  shall  be  cast  out  and 
their  stink  shall  come  up  out  of  their  carcasses,  and 
the  mountains  shall  be  melted  with  their  blood." 
How  sharp  and  clear  and  definite  is  the  Bible  pic- 
ture of  the  wrath  of  God  !  We,  in  these  modern 
days,  dwell  most  upon  the  inevitable  issues  which  are 
involved  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  The  good 
moves  against  the  evil  and  must  in  the  end  destroy 
it.  It  is  a  vehement,  impetuous  and  fiery  movement, 
but  it  is  abstract.  It  is  the  fight  of  principle  with 
principle.  The  Bible  is  all  different  from  that.  "God 
is  angry  with  the  wicked  every  day."  It  is  a  great 
and  passionate  Person,  whose  feeling  fills  the  earth 
with  tumult,  who  in  rage  and  indignation  sets  right 
the  evils  of  the  earth  and  punishes  the  sons  of  men 

for  their  wrong-doing. 
262 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.       263 

We  must  be  fully  in  the  power  of  this  intense  per- 
sonal conception  of  God  before  we  can  enter  into  the 
force  of  the  words  which  I  have  chosen  for  my  text 
this  morning.  God  is  about  to  smite  the  wickedness 
of  the  earth.  His  sword  is  in  His  hand.  And  then, 
as  a  part  of  the  terrible  announcement,  there  comes 
these  words  :  "  My  sword  shall  be  bathed  in 
heaven."  What  does  that  mean  ?  It  draws  back 
the  curtain  which  separates  the  visible  world  from 
the  invisible.  It  reveals  celestial  regions  in  which 
there  are  also  great  struggles  going  on.  It  lifts  up 
our  eyes  to  the  grander  movements  of  the  vast  world 
of  spirits.  And  then  it  declares  that  the  sword 
which  is  to  be  used  in  fighting  what  seems  to  be  the 
petty  wars  of  the  Hebrews  and  the  Edomites,  is  the 
same  sword  which  has  been  used  in  these  celestial 
conflicts;  that  the  means  and  instruments  of  right- 
eousness upon  the  earth  must  be  the  same  with  the 
means  and  instruments  of  righteousness  in  the 
heavens. 

This  is  the  meaning,  I  think,  of  the  great  words, 
"  my  sword  shall  be  bathed  in  heaven."  Another 
glowing  translation  of  the  same  words  makes  them 
read,  "  my  sword  has  become  intoxicated  in  heaven." 
It  is  not  an  uncommon  figure,  this  strong  picture 
of  the  intoxicated  instruments  of  war.  You  remem- 
ber the  song  of  Moses  in  Deuteronomy,  where  Jeho- 
vah is  heard  declaring,  "  I  will  make  my  arrows 
drunk  with  blood."  You  remember  how  God  in  the 
prophecy  of  Jeremiah  declares,  "  This  is  the  day  of 
the  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  a  day  of  vengeance,  that  he 


264        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

may  avenge  him  of  his  adversaries,  and  the  sword 
shall  devour,  and  it  shall  be  satiate  and  made  drunk 
with  their  blood." 

Here  then  is  God  pictured  as  the  mighty  conquer- 
or who  on  other  fields  has  already  subdued  his  ene- 
mies with  the  only  weapons  which  it  is  possible  for 
him  to  use,  with  the  absolute  righteousness  and  truth. 
With  those  same  weapons,  all  ablaze  and  living  and 
eager  from  the  fight  in  which  they  had  been  engaged, 
he  declares  that  he  will  fight  his  battles  on  earth. 
It  shall  be  a  sword  bathed  in  heaven  which  shall 
"  come  down  upon  Idumea." 

We  pause  a  moment  and  let  ourselves  think  of 
this  suggested  vision  of  the  universe  all  full  of  moral 
struggle.  We  can  know  nothing  of  what  that  strug- 
gle is  in  other  worlds  than  ours.  The  fields  of  life  are 
larger  than  we  see,  larger  than  all  the  history  of 
man  has  told.  Wherever  there  are  beings  of  free 
will,  there,  whether  it  be  in  far-off  stars  or  in  the 
depths  of  space  beyond  the  farthest  star  itself,  there 
must  be  struggle,  the  possibilities  of  evil,  the  choice 
between  the  evil  and  the  good.  And  in  no  part  of 
His  universe  can  God  be  passive.  Everywhere  He 
must  be  the  foe  of  the  evil  and  the  friend  of  the  good. 
Everywhere  therefore  throughout  the  great  per- 
plexed tumultuous  universe,  we  can  see  the  flashing 
of  His  sword.  "  His  sword !  "  we  say,  and  that  must 
mean  His  nature  uttering  itself  in  His  own  form  of 
force.  Nothing  can  be  in  His  sword  which  is  not  in 
His  nature.  And  so  the  sword  of  God  in  heavenly 
regions   must  mean  perfect  thoroughness  and  per- 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.        265 

feet  justice  contending  against  evil  and  self-will,  and 
bringing  about  everywhere  the  ultimate  victory  of 
righteousness  and  truth. 

Out  of  this  celestial,  this  universal  struggle  the 
sword  of  God,  yet  hot  and  fresh  from  the  blows 
which  it  had  struck,  came  down  among  the  Jews  to 
fight  for  them  with  Edom.  That  was  the  message 
which  Isaiah  brought.  It  was  good  both  for  Edom 
and  for  Israel  that  it  should  be  clearly  known  to  be 
the  sword  bathed  in  the  heavens,  the  same  force 
which  was  engaged  in  the  eternal  battles,  which  was 
to  fight  for  the  chosen  people  and  against  their  en- 
emy. The  enemy  needed  to  know  it  in  order  that 
they  might  be  sure  that  the  sword's  work  would  be 
thorough,  that  there  would  be  no  sparing  as  long  as 
there  was  any  wickedness  to  be  destroyed.  The 
chosen  people  needed  to  know  it,  that  they  might 
understand  that  even  for  them  God  could  not  and 
would  not  fight  otherwise  than  as  God;  that  there 
would  be  no  mere  favoritism,  nor  any  tolerance  of 
means  or  methods  which  were  undivine.  That  ev- 
ery struggle  of  the  people  of  God  against  evil  in  this 
world  must  be  fired  with  eternal  principles,  must  be 
instinct  with  thoroughness  and  with  justice;  that  is 
the  plain  prosaic  meaning  of  the  word  of  God  to 
Isaiah  which  declared,  "  My  sword  shall  be  bathed 
in  heaven." 

You  see  then,  I  think,  what  it  is  of  which  I  wish 
to  preach  to  you  this  morning.  It  is  the  truth  that 
all  the  true  battles  of  the  earth  really  are  God's  bat- 
tles, and  are  to  be  fought  only  in  God's  spirit  and 


266        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

God's  way.     The  old  history  of  Israel  and  Edom  sinks 
back  into  a  parable.     All  that  history  was  a  crude 
and  elementary  utterance  of  the  great   truth   that 
there  must  ever  be,  so  long  as  the  world  remains  im- 
perfect  and  is  struggling   towards   perfection,  two 
parts  of  the  world,  one  of  which  is  God's  and  one  of 
which  is  not.     The  chosen  people,  the  people  of  the 
covenant,  have  passed  away.     They  have  fallen  from 
their  high  estate.     They  no  longer  stand  above  their 
fellow-men,  throned  in  the  favoritism  of  God      But 
what  that  chosen  people  represented   is    perpetual. 
There  always  is  in  the  world  some  part  of  the  world 
consecrated    to    the    struggle   to   make   the    world 
divine.     It   is   not  limited  by  the  geography   of  a 
nation.     It  is  not  handed  down  to  son  from  father. 
It  is  that  part  of  the  general  humanity,  that  part  of 
any  race,  nay,  that  part  of  any  man — for  even  the 
individual  life  may  be  divided  between  God  and  the 
enemy  of  God — it  is  that   part   of  human   nature 
which  is  consecrated  to  God,  and  trying  to  do  his 
will.     That  is  the  everlasting  Israel.     That  in  the 
Christian  constitution  is  the  correspondent  of  what 
Judaism,  the  idea  of  the  chosen  people,  was  under 
the   system   which   the    New  Testament  describes. 
In   more   spiritual   ways   therefore,    with    less   for- 
mality,   more   flexibly   and   freely,   all  that  is  said 
of  God's   relation  to  the  Judaism    of  the  Old   Tes- 
tament, must  be   the   picture  and   the   parable   of 
the  relation  which  God  holds  to  all  struggle  after 
goodness,  all  effort  of  noble  and  devoted  life  every- 
where and  always.     It  is  in  the  light  of  this  idea 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.        267 

that  such  texts  as  this  out  of  Isaiah  really  become 
ours. 

The  first  point,  then,  is  that  all  good  struggle  in 
the  world  is  really  God's  battle,  and  ought  to  recog- 
nize itself  as  such.  A  young  man  sets  out  from 
college  determined  to  do  what  he  can  to  help  set 
right  the  evils  which  are  in  the  world.  The  ordi- 
nary careers  which  attract  men  have  no  attraction 
for  him.  He  does  not  care  to  be  rich,  or  perhaps 
he  is  rich  already.  At  any  rate,  he  takes  his  life 
in  his  hand  and  freely,  genuinely,  gives  it  to  his 
fellow-men.  What  a  tumult  it  is  into  which  he  casts 
himself,  what  a  disorder,  what  a  crossing  and  re- 
crossing  of  interests,  what  a  snarl  of  difficult  prob- 
lems !  It  is  like  trying  to  push  back  the  sea,  which 
eludes  you  at  every  instant  and  with  its  fluid  mass 
is  as  solid  as  the  rock  itself.  But  can  we  not  see  at 
once  what  a  difference  it  will  make  to  this  young 
worker  against  evil  if  he  is  really  able  to  think  of 
the  great  fight  in  which  he  is  engaged  not  merely 
as  his  fight  but  as  God's  fight ;  as  his  fight  because 
it  is  God's  fight  and  he  is  God's  ?  Suppose  that  he 
is  large  enough,  religious  enough,  to  look  abroad 
and  see  God  gradually  occupying  the  earth  with 
the  eternal  principles  of  his  righteousness.  Every 
special  victory  of  human  progress,  the  victory  over 
slavery,  the  victory  over  superstition,  the  victory 
over  social  wrong,  nay  even  the  victory  over  tough 
matter,  the  subduing  of  the  hard  stuff  of  nature  to 
spiritual  uses,  each  of  these  is  but  a  footstep  in  the 
great  onward   march  of  God  taking  possession  of 


268        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

His  own.  Must  it  not  make  a  difference  to  the 
young  reformer  whether  he  is  able  to  think  of  his 
struggle  thus,  or  whether  he  is  able  merely  to  think 
of  himself  as  the  empirical  student  of  political 
economy  or  social  science,  or  as  the  expression  of 
an  instinctive  human  sympathy  ?  The  poor  are 
God's  poor.  The  slave  is  God's  freeman.  This  op- 
pressive institution  is  a  blot  on  God's  earth.  Surely 
if  he  catches  that  meaning  in  it  all,  his  whole  strug- 
gle must  be  intensified  and  purified.  His  struggle 
may  still  keep  the  other  truths  and  motives,  but  it 
surrounds  them  all  with  this  larger  and  loftier  one. 
Especially  two  things  must  come  as  the  result  of 
such  a  consciousness — the  spirit  of  thoroughness  and 
the  spirit  of  justice.  The  young  man  really  count- 
ing his  struggle  God's,  must  determine  never  to  be 
satisfied  until  the  victory  is  complete,  and  he  must 
shrink  from  and  refuse  every  temptation  to  use  any 
weapons  except  the  weapons  of  righteousness  in  a 
battle  which  belongs  not  merely  to  himself  but  to 
the  Lord  of  all  righteousness  and  truth. 

Certain  it  is  that  in  all  ages  this  conviction  has 
been  at  the  heart  of  all  the  most  earnest  work  that 
the  world  has  seen.  The  reformers  who  have  really 
done  the  work  have  been  those  who  have  dared  to 
call  their  work  a  work  of  God.  It  has  been  the  voice 
of  God  in  their  ears,  it  has  been  the  sword  of  God 
flashing  at  their  side  which  has  made  them  coura- 
geous as  fire  and  persistent  as  iron. 

May  not  one  plead  with  any  generous  young  heart 
which  thus  is  set  upon  the  fight  with  sin   and  error, 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.       269 

that  it  should  lift  itself  up  at  the  very  outset,  and" 
dare  to  couut  its  fight  a  fight  of  God.  Do  not  satisfy 
yourself  with  mere  considerations  of  economy  or  mere 
impulses  of  humanity.  Both  are  good.  But  greater 
than  both  is  the  enthusiastic  sense  of  confederacy 
with  God.  Fight  your  battle  for  Him,  with  Him. 
So  you  shall  fight  it  most  persistently,  most  purely. 
Fight  it  with  the  sword  bathed  in  heaven,  and  so  you 
shall  make  it  victorious,  and  grow  strong  and  great 
yourself  in  fighting  it. 

Hike  to  trace  how  a  great  truth  like  this  applies  even 
to  what  we  call  the  most  common  and  least  spiritual 
things.  I  have  already  suggested  that  it  seems  to 
me  to  apply  even  to  man's  conflict  with  the  obstinate 
world  of  matter,  his  battle  with  the  stubborn  stone 
and  wood  on  which  he  has  to  exercise  his  skill. 
That  is  a  never-ending  conflict.  The  human  mind 
is  meeting  the  obtuse  substance  of  the  earth  at  every 
mechanic's  bench,  in  every  artist's  studio,  wherever 
the  railroad  is  piercing  the  mountain  or  the  steam- 
ship plows  the  ocean.  Is  it  not  true  of  all  art  and 
of  all  artisanship  that  thoroughness  and  truthfulness 
are  what  we  need ;  the  refusal  to  slight  work  and  the 
refusal  to  attempt  any  results  except  by  legitimate, 
and  honest,  and  appropriate  means  ?  And  is  it  not 
true  also  that  thoroughness  and  truthfulness  in 
any  work  of  art  or  artisanship  must  come  not 
from  economy  but  from  principle,  not  from  the 
sense  that  they  alone  can  really  produce  the  effect, 
but  from  the  profound  conviction  that,  whatever  be 
the  effect  which  they  produce,  they  alone  are  right, 


270        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

and  worthy  for  a  man  to  use  ?  This  is  the  faculty 
of  genius.  And  all  religious  action  ought  to  have, 
must  have,  some  of  the  quality  of  genius  in  it. 
Every  work  of  art,  and  every  work  of  artisanship 
which  has,  as  all  artisanship  ought  to  have,  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  of  art  about  it,  must  be  kept  pure, 
noble,  unmercenary  and  ideal  by  its  constant  relation 
to  and  consciousness  of  first  principles,  which  are 
indeed  nothing  but  the  ideas  of  God. 

This  is  hardly  more  than  suggestion.  Think 
again  of  the  more  serious  struggle,  the  struggle  with 
ignorance  and  error  and  with  wrong  ideas  and  faiths. 
There  are  two  different  views  which  may  inspire  the 
combatant  with  error.  He  may  think  of  error  as 
mischievous,  or  he  may  abhor  and  dread  error  for 
itself,  apart  from  its  consequences,  as  an  intrusion 
and  a  misery  in  a  world  whose  vital  atmosphere  is 
truth.  Is  it  not  clear  what  a  different  thing  his 
fight  will  be,  according  as  he  takes  one  or  the  other 
of  these  views  ?  If  he  takes  the  first  view  he  will  be 
liable  to  limit  his  fight  with  error  by  his  perception 
of  its  mischievousness.  The  error  which  he  does 
not  happen  to  think  mischievous  he  will  tolerate  or 
ignore.  There  is  no  thoroughness  in  that.  And  he 
will  also  be  too  apt  to  fight  a  mischievous  error  with 
what  seems  to  be  a  less  mischievous  error,  and 
to  do  evil  that  good  may  come.  How  much  of  that 
the  world  has  seen !  "  I  know  this  fight  of  mine  is 
not  conducted  on  the  highest  ground,  but  still  this 
thing  I  am  trying  to  set  up,  bad  as  it  is,  is  not 
nearly  so  bad  as  what  it  seeks  to  destroy.     Let  me 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.        271 

defeat  this  lie  with  a  lesser  lie,  this  sham  with  a 
less  harmful  sham."  There  is  no  bathing  of  the 
sword  in  heaven  there.  To  strike  for  absolute  truth, 
to  tolerate  no  falsehood,  however  useful  for  the  time 
it  seems,  that  is  not  possible  unless  the  man  counts 
his  fight  God's  fight  and  despises  any  method  which 
it  is  not  worthy  of  God  and  of  the  Son  of  God  to  use. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  fight  with  sin.  Think  of 
sin  as  a  mistake,  or  as  an  inconvenience,  and  you 
stand  in  great  danger,  first,  of  compromising  with  it, 
and  second,  of  using  low  and  even  sinful  methods 
of  opposing  it.  But  think  of  sin  as  a  frightful 
wrong  in  itself,  a  blot  and  curse  in  the  universe  of 
God,  and  you  grow  at  once  absolutely  intolerant  of 
it,  and  at  the  same  time  watchfully  anxious  about  the 
nature  of  the  weapons  which  you  shall  use  to  fight 
it  with.  How  often  has  even  the  Christian  Church 
fought  sin  with  sin !  How  often  has  the  selfishness 
which  looked  to  an  eternal  luxury  and  privilege  in 
heaven,  been  arrayed  against  the  selfishness  which 
was  hungry  for  meat,  or  thirsty  for  drink,  here  upon 
the  earth  !  How  often  has  insincere  profession  been 
offered  as  the  medicine  for  doubt !  How  many  men 
have  been  transformed  from  cold  indifference  to  hot 
partisanship,  and  thereby  seemed  to  have  been  made 
religious  !  How  many  revivals  have  been  sensational 
and  superficial  and  demoralizing !  The  fury  of  per- 
secution called  in  to  kill  out  heresy — what  is  that 
but  the  sword  bathed  in  hell,  the  sword  drunk  with 
the  evil  passions  of  the  worst  humanity !  And 
everywhere  it  would  be  possible  to  show  that  such 


272        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

horrible  misuse  of  weapons  came  from  a  misconcep- 
tion of  the  nature  of  the  enemy.  Only,  my  dear 
friends,  when  we  see  sin  as  God  sees  it,  only  then 
can  we  be  sure  of  using  no  weapons  that  are  not 
divine  for  its  removal.  Only  when  pity  for  it  joins 
with  horror  at  it  in  our  hearts,  as  they  join  in  the 
heart  of  God,  each  keeping  the  other  strong  and 
pure,  only  then  can  we  go  out  to  meet  it  with  a  per- 
fect determination,  bound  never  to  lay  down  our  arms 
so  long  as  there  is  any  sin  left  in  the  world;  and  at 
the  same  time,  with  an  absolute  conviction  that  no 
impatience  to  rid  the  world  of  sin  must  tempt  us 
for  a  moment  to  use  any  means  for  its  destruction 
which  are  not  pure  and  just ;  an  absolute  conviction 
that  it  is  better  that  sin  should  be  left  master  of  the 
field,  than  that  it  should  be  fought  with  sin. 

Oh,  how  the  history  of  brave  men  whose  lives 
have  been  long  fights  with  wickedness,  have  borne 
terrible  testimony  of  what  a  hard  thing  it  is  to  get 
that  conviction  and  to  keep  it.  0  how  full  of  faith 
the  man  must  be  who  sees  a  giant  evil  stalking 
through  the  land,  ruining  human  lives  by  the  mil- 
lion, and  knows  how  by  some  act  or  policy  which  is 
not  true  and  sound  and  pure  he  might  arrest  that 
evil,  and  save  precious  lives,  and  yet  withholds  his 
hand  and  says,  "  I  cannot."  There  is  no  struggle  for 
a  man  like  that,  no  agony  so  deep,  no  test  of  bra- 
very so  searching.  The  world  stands  by  and  plies 
its  well-worn  maxims,  "  Of  two  evils  choose  the 
least,"  "  A  half  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread."  "  Nay, 
but  my  sword  must  be  bathed  in  heaven,"  the  soul 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.       273 

replies,  arid  I  will  not  stir  until  each  blow  may  have 
in  it  the  strength  of  a  conscience  void  of  offence. 

Thank  God,  if  the  waiting  and  inaction  has  indeed 
been  of  this  noble  sort,  the  time  is  sure  to  come  when 
the  long  delay  is  more  than  justified.  The  time  comes 
when,  without  a  hesitation  or  misgiving,  the  soldier 
of  God  sees  that  he  may  strike,  and  may  call  every 
good  power  to  witness  that  he  does  right  in  striking. 
Then  it  is  evident  that  his  plunging  of  his  sword  in 
the  eternal  righteousness  has  not  merely  made  it 
powerless  for  evil  but  has  made  it  fiery  for  good. 
Then  men  who  called  him  coward  because  he  would 
not  strike  at  the  wrong  time,  stand  by  in  amazement 
as  they  see  him  harvesting  the  field  with  every  great 
sweep  of  his  unhesitating  arm.  For  now  he  is  a  true 
Sir  Galahad. 

"  His  strength  is  as  the  strength  of  ten 
Because  his  heart  is  pure." 

O  my  dear  friends,  never  let  yourselves  do  evil  that 
good  may  come.  If  you  do,  you  hinder  the  coming 
of  the  real,  the  perfect  good  in  its  due  time.  Never 
try  to  set  a  wrong  right  by  another  wrong.  You  are 
only  putting  off  the  day  when  the  true  right  shall  be 
established.  Never  plot  villany  against  a  villain; 
never  comfort  affliction  with  a  falsehood ;  never  try  to 
silence  error  with  an  argument  which  you  do  not  be- 
lieve ;  never  fight  God's  battle  with  any  weapon  of 
the  devil.  Far  rather  would  He  have  you  stand  aside 
useless,  and  let  Him  fight  His  own  battle.     It  is  not 

necessary  for  Him  that  you  should  help  Him.     But  it 

18 


274        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

is  necessary  for  yourself  that  you  should  be  true. 
Nothing  but  a  clear  faith  that  the  battles  which  we 
are  fighting  are  God's  battles,  can  make  us  strong 
enough  for  all  this. 

We  look  up  to  the  summit  of  our  humanity,  where 
Jesus  stands,  and  there  we  see  the  fire  of  this  faith 
burning  in  perfect  light.  Behold  him  in  the  Gos- 
pels. Men  came  to  him  and  said,  "  Do  this !  Do 
that !  "  "  Speak  to  my  brother  that  he  divide  the 
inheritance."  "  Restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel,"  and 
how  he  waved  them  aside.  "  Who  made  me  a  judge 
or  divider  over  you?"  "Put  up  thy  sword  into  its 
sheath."     "  My  hour  is  not  yet  come." 

One  of  the  marvellous  things  about  Jesus  is  the 
union  of  fire  and  patience.  He  saw  his  Father's 
House  turned  into  a  place  of  merchandise,  and  in- 
stantly the  whip  of  small  cords  was  in  his  hands 
and  he  was  cleansing  the  sacred  place  with  his  im- 
passioned indignation.  And  yet  he  walked  day  after 
day  through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  and  saw  the  sin 
and  let  the  sinners  sin  on  with  only  the  remonstrance 
of  his  pure  presence  and  his  pitying  gaze.  Base 
and  blind  is  the  man  who  lets  himself  misread  that 
patience.  Base  and  blind  is  he  who  excuses  his  easy 
tolerance  of  wickedness,  his  comfortable  carelessness 
about  the  sin  of  the  world,  by  quoting  to  himself  the 
fact  that  Jesus  did  not  call  down  the  lightning  out  of 
heaven  to  destroy  the  wicked  city  of  the  Jews.  But 
blind  also  is  he  who  does  not  learn  the  true  lesson 
of  that  divine  patience,  the  truth  which  the  Lord 
himself  put  into  His  parable  of  the   tares,  the  truth 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.       275 

that  only  in  God's  own  time  and  God's  own  way  can 
the  battles  of  the  Lord  be  fought.  The  general  holds 
his  army  till  the  right  moment  for  launching  them 
upon  the  foe.  It  is  heroism  to  stand  still  and  wait 
under  fire  as  truly  as  it  is  heroism  by-and-by  to  rush 
upon  the  guns  of  the  enemy.  It  is  disobedience  and 
weakness  to  be  self-willed  and  fight  wrongly,  as 
truly  as  it  is  to  run  away  and  refuse  to  fight  at  all. 
There  is  no  self-will  in  Jesus.  He  is  one  with  His 
Father  and  lives  by  his  Father's  will.  Every  act  that 
he  did  came  forth,  therefore,  out  of  the  eternal  nature. 
His  sword  was  always  bathed  in  heaven.  The  devil 
said  to  Him,  "  Worship  me  and  you  shall  have  this 
world  you  want  so  much,  and  save  it  to  your  heart's 
content."  "  Not  so,"  said  Jesus.  "  It  is  not  just  to 
save  the  world,  but  to  save  it  righteously.  To  save 
it  unrighteously  is  not  truly  to  save  it  at  all.  Get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan  !  "  0  for  a  courage  like  this, 
growing  out  of  a  faith  like  his  ! 

I  have  spoken  of  the  battles  against  sin  as  if  they 
were  altogether  battles  with  the  world's  sins,  with 
sin  outside  ourselves.  Let  me,  before  I  close  my 
sermon,  speak  to  you  in  a  few  words  about  that 
harder  battle  which  goes  on  in  a  man's  own  soul,  his 
battle  with  his  own  sins,  and  see  how  the  truth  of 
which  I  have  been  preaching  applies  especially  to  it ; 
how  there  most  of  all  the  sword  must  be  bathed  in 
heaven.  To  know  first  of  all  and  deepest  of  all,  that 
that  battle  which  goes  on  within  us  is  God's  battle, 
is  of  supreme  importance.  What  are  our  sins? 
What  is  your  selfishness,  your  untruthfulness,  your 


276        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

cruelty  ?  Is  it  something  which  hurts  and  hinders 
you  ?  Indeed  it  is.  But  beyond  that  it  is  something 
which  usurps  a  kingdom  which  belongs  to  God.  It 
is  His  enemy.  And  every  movement  of  your  con- 
science, ever  sense  of  usurpation  and  of  incongruity, 
is  not  merely  the  revolt  of  your  own  outraged  soul.  It 
is  also  the  claim  of  the  true  King  upon  his  Kingdom. 
It  is  the  sound  of  the  monarch's  trumpet  summon- 
ing the  rebellious  castle  to  surrender.  Believe  this, 
and  what  a  dignity  enters  into  the  moral  struggle 
of  our  life.  It  is  no  mere  restless  fermentation,  the 
disturbed  nature  out  of  harmony  with  itself.  It  is 
God,  with  the  great  moral  gravitation  of  universal 
righteousness,  dragging  this  stray  and  wayward 
atom  back  into  Himself.  0  deep  divine  mysterious 
process,  that  goes  on  wherever  in  silent  chamber  or 
in  crowded  street  the  humbled  penitent  lies  pros- 
trate in  the  dust,  or  the  resolute  straggler  stands 
wrestling  with  his  temptation  ! 

But  if  the  battle  be  God's  battle,  then  it  must  be 
fought  only  with  God's  weapons.  That  must  follow 
in  our  struggles  with  our  sins  as  well  as  in  our  strug- 
gles with  the  world.  You  want  to  get  rid  of  your 
selfishness.  You  must  not  kill  it  with  the  sword 
of  another  selfishness,  which  thenceforth  shall  rule  in 
its  place.  Have  we  not  all  known  men  who  in  their 
youth  were  profligate  and  reckless  ?  They  flung  the 
gold  of  health,  and  purity,  and  good  esteem  into  the 
mire  of  licentiousness.  By-and-by  they  saw  how 
foolish  and  how  fatal  all  that  was.  They  were  kill- 
ing themselves  with  this  which  they  call  life.     Then 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.       277 

they  reformed.  They  took  care  of  their  health. 
They  nursed  their  reputation.  They  grew  even  to 
be  very  patterns  of  propriety.  The  town  has  no 
such  censors  of  wickedness  to-day  as  they  are.  They 
are  as  uncharitable  as  they  once  were  unscrupulous. 
And  they  are  just  as  selfish  to-day,  as  they  were 
twenty  years  ago  when  they  were  living  in  the  furi- 
ous indulgence  of  their  appetites.  They  have  kill- 
ed one  selfishness  with  the  sword  of  another  selfish- 
ness. It  is  the  old  story  of  the  Book  of  Kings. 
Sennacharib  king  of  Assyria  is  slain  by  his  sons,  as  he 
is  worshipping  in  the  house  of  Nisroch  his  God. 
And  Esarhaddon  his  son  reigns  in  his  stead.  And  so 
the  Assyrian  despotism  goes  on  still ! 

Or  think  of  the  way  in  which  the  man  who  finds 
himself  indifferent  about  truth,  and  wants  to  conquer 
his  indifference,  betakes  himself  to  partisan  intol- 
erance, and  grows  narrow  and  bitter  on  principle. 
Think  of  how  the  skeptic,  by-and-by,  weary  of  skep- 
ticism, shuts  his  eyes  upon  the  light  and  calls  his 
wilful  blindness  faith.  The  instances  are  numberless. 
The  killing  of  sin  by  sin,  of  selfishness  by  selfishness, 
of  death  by  death  ! 

Bat  he  who  dares  to  count  the  battle  of  his  soul 
God's  battle,  must  rise  to  loftier  and  purer  methods. 
For  him  selfishness  can  only  be  cast  out  by  self-for- 
getfulness  and  consecration ;  and  false  liberality  and 
license  can  only  be  overcome  by  larger  and  truer 
liberty;  and  skepticism,  which  is  the  glamor  of  the 
twilight,  must  never  dream  of  going  back  into  the 
darkness,  but  must  press  forward  to  the  noonday. 


278        The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven. 

Here  only  is  there  any  real  enthusiasm  and  hope. 
Sometimes  I  know  it  must  have  seemed  to  some  of 
you  as  if  the  prospect  of  life  were  very  doleful,  be- 
cause it  offered  nothing  but  the  wearisome  monoto- 
nous alternation  and  exchange  of  sin  for  sin.  When 
the  sins  of  recklessness  could  be  no  longer  indulged 
in,  then  should  come  the  sins  of  prudence;  when 
the  vices  of  youth  were  over,  then  welcome  the  other 
vices  of  old  age.  0  my  dear  friend,  there  is  some- 
thing better  than  that.  It  is  possible  to  bring 
down  to  the  earth  the  perfect  standards  of  the  heav- 
ens, to  stop  thinking  about  safety  and  comfort  and 
salvation  altogether,  and  to  be  splendidly  inspired 
with  the  consciousness  that  we  are  soldiers  under 
God;  to  think  of  our  own  sins  not  as  the  things 
which  are  going  to  condemn  us  to  eternal  torture, 
but  as  the  enemies  of  Him,  the  hindrances  that 
stand  in  the  way  of  His  victorious  designs  ;  to  see 
their  badness  not  in  their  consequences,  but  in  their 
nature,  not  in  their  quantity  but  in  their  quality; 
and  so  to  bring  to  bear  upon  the  very  least  of  them 
the  intense  hatred  and  intolerance  which  the  very 
nature  of  sin  must  always  excite  in  him  who  has 
attained  a  true  passion  for  holiness. 

Can  you  imagine  Jesus  discovering  in  the  robes 
of  his  spotless  holiness,  one  single  spot  of  sin?  Be- 
hold him  as  he  gazes  on  it !  Is  there  any  question 
in  him  as  to  whether  it  is  great  or  small  ?  The  pos- 
itive horror  of  its  being  there  swallows  up  all  ques- 
tions of  its  size.  Is  there  any  question  as  to  what 
its   consequence    will  be?     The   present   horror  is 


The  Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven.       279 

enough.  The  future  is  not  thought  of.  Only,  all  the 
Godhood  that  is  in  Jesus  is  instantly  summoned  to 
destroy  this  spot  of  sin.  AH  the  ocean  of  the  divine 
power  and  holiness  is  implored  to  pour  in  and  wash 
this  speck  of  wickedness  away. 

So  it  is  possible  for  us  to  deal  with  every  sin,  little 
or  great,  that  we  discover  in  our  hearts.  To  count 
it  God's  enemy  and  to  fight  it  with  all  His  purity  and 
strength;  that  is  what  it  means  for  us  that  our 
sword  should  be  bathed  in  heaven !  Courage  can 
only  come  with  thoroughness.  But  with  absolute 
thoroughness,  courage  must  come.  Resolve  to-day 
that  every  strength  of  God  which  it  is  your  right  to 
invoke,  because  you  are  His  child,  and  which  prayer 
and  consecration  can  bring  into  you  from  Him,  shall 
be  devoted  to  the  overcoming  of  your  sin,  and  then 
your  sin  shall  certainly  be  overcome.  May  He  whose 
enemy  that  sin  is,  as  well  as  yours,  grant  that  victory 
to  you,  and  win  it  for  Himself! 


SERMON  XVI. 

"  As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  even  so  know  I  the  Father." 
St.  John  x.  15. 

"  Then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 
1  Corinthians  xiii.  12. 

THE  first  of  these  two  texts  is  from  the  words  of 
Jesus.  He  is  telling  the  people  of  his  relation 
to  them  on  one  side,  and  to  his  Father  on  the  other. 
He  says  he  is  like  a  shepherd  in  the  charge  of  sheep. 
Between  him  and  the  owner  of  the  sheep,  who  has  put 
him  in  charge  of  them,  there  is  the  most  perfect  confi- 
dence, a  mutual  knowledge  which  is  absolute.  The 
second  text  is  from  one  of  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
He  is  anticipating  the  completion  of  life.  He  is 
looking  forward  and  saying  what  man  will  be  when 
he  comes  to  his  completeness.  And  what  he  proph- 
ecies is  just  exactly  what  Christ  declares  as  already 
present  in  himself.  Paul  says,  "  some  day  I  shall 
know  God  as  God  knows  me."  Jesus  says,  "  As 
God  knows  me,  even  so  do  I  now  know  God." 

Do  not  these  two  verses,  taken  together,  give  a 

very  striking  picture  of  the  general  method  of  the 
280 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  281 

Christian  faith  ?     Do  they  not  in  their  combination 
make  that  same  impression  which  is  made  by  the 
whole  New  Testament  ?    Behold  here  in  almost  iden- 
tical words  are  the  eager  hope  and  the  calm  assur- 
ance of  accomplishment.     Here  is  man  reaching  out 
for  a  great  spiritual  attainment,  for  the  knowledge  of 
God;  and  here  is  The  Man  saying,  "  I  have  attained 
it,  I  do  know  God."     That  is  the  very  spirit  and 
soul  of  the  New  Testament,  the  hope  of  man  already 
fulfilled  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  possibility  of  man  made 
already  manifest  in  Jesus  Christ.     Among   the  dif- 
ferences which  have  been  in  the  world  since  Christ's 
religion  came,  is  not  this  one  of  the  greatest,  that  the 
best  men  in  all  their  hopes  and  struggles  have  hoped 
and  struggled  in  the  presence  of  a  visible  success  ? 
In  all  times,  under  every  faith,  the  men  of  hope  and 
struggle  have  carried  in  their  hearts  a  deep  assurance 
that  the  thing   for  which   they    strove   was  possi- 
ble.   Under  every  discouragement,  untouched  by  any 
skepticism  or  contempt  of  scornful  friend  or  foe,  there 
has  lain  at  the  bottom  of  the  soul  a  conviction  too 
deep  for  reason  to  give  an  account  of,  that  this  which 
seemed  so  impossible  could  be  done.     The  soul  could 
break  through  its  selfishness,  could  despise  danger 
and  pain,  could  enter  into  communion   with   God. 
There  could  be  no  struggle  at  all  buoyant  and  enthu- 
siastic without  such  certain  convictions  lying  at  the 
bottom  of  the  soul.     But  now  what  happened — one 
of  the  things  which  happened — at  the  incarnation 
was  that  this  assurance,  which  had  lain  at  the  bottom 
of  the  human  heart,  came  forth  and  was  a  living,  man- 


282  The  Knowledge  of  God. 

lfest  Being.  It  put  on  human  flesh.  It  spoke  with 
human  lips.  It  worked  with  human  hands.  Christ 
was  what  man  had  felt  in  his  soul  that  he  might  be. 
Christ  did  what  man's  heart  had  always  told  him 
that  it  was  in  his  humanity  to  do.  The  new  man 
which  the  old  manhood  had  always  felt  struggling 
within  itself  came  forth,  and  men  knew  themselves, 
their  true  selves,  for  the  first  time  manifest  in  Him. 
This  was  what  made  mans  hope  thenceforth  another 
thing.  The  stars  at  which  men  had  guessed,  know- 
ing with  what  they  called  certainty  that  they  were 
there,  lo  !  in  the  Incarnation  they  burned  out  visibly. 
Thenceforth  it  was  with  a  new  and  different  assur- 
ance that  the  believer  said,  "  I  shall  some  day  know 
as  1  am  known,"  when  Christ  had  once  said,  "As 
the  Father  knoweth  me,  I  do  now  know  the  Father." 
I  know  that  there  may  seem  to  some  of  you  to  be 
something  strange  in  talk  like  this.  Have  you  been 
in  the  habit  of  thinking  of  Christ  as  of  one  so  far 
away,  so  different  from  us,  that  what  he  is  and  does 
seems  to  throw  no  light  on  what  we  may  be  and  do  ? 
But  such  a  thought  as  that  denies  the  very  power  of 
the  Incarnation.  -  Here  stand  our  human  lives,  all 
dark  and  lustreless.  Here  stands  one  human  life  in 
which  has  been  lighted  the  fire  of  an  evident  divin- 
ity. Shall  we  look  on  and  see  the  fine  lines  and  the 
fair  colors  of  human  nature  brought  out  by  the  fire 
which  burns  within,  and  not  make  any  glowing  in- 
ference with  regard  to  our  own  humanity,  with  regard 
to  its  unfulfilled  possibilities  and  the  attainments  for 
which  it  may  confidently  hope  ?     Surely  not  so  !     If 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  283 


He  can  conquer  temptation,  then  to  be  conquered  by 
temptation,  however  it  may  seem  inevitable  to-day, 
cannot  be  the  hopeless  doom  of  man.  If  he  cannot 
merely  be  known  of  God,  but  know  God,  then  we 
too  may  be  above  the  fear  of  any  base  agnosticism 
and  look  forward  to  the  day  in  which  we  too  shall 
know  as  we  are  known. 

Let  us  believe  indeed  that  in  the  experience  of 
Christ  there  is  such  revelation  of  the  possibility,  such 
confirmation  of  the  hopes  of  our  humanity !  So 
only  does  his  life  become  that  beacon  on  the  moun- 
tain-top, that  bugle  cry  at  the  army's  head,  which  he 
evidently  counted  it  to  be,  which  it  has  so  often  been 
through  all  the  Christian  centuries  ! 

One  special  illustration  of  all  this  is  in  these  two 
texts,  which  I  have  chosen  for  this  morning.  The 
knowledge  of  God,  a  knowledge  of  Him  such  as  He 
has  of  us,  this  Christ  declares  that  he  possesses. 
This,  because  of  Christ's  possession  of  it,  we  dare  to 
believe  that  we  shall  some  day  possess.  Let  us  try 
to  understand  this  belief  more  deeply,  that  we  may 
make  it  more  thoroughly  our  own.  Let  us  study 
first  Christ's  assurance  about  himself,  and  then  St. 
Paul's  hope  for  all  believers. 

"  As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  even  so  know  I  the 
Father."  The  words  are  full  of  that  idea  of  mutual- 
ness  which  gives  so  much  of  warmth  and  richness  to 
all  life.  Any  relation  which  is  all  one-sided  is  un- 
satisfactory and  dull.  It  is  not  vividly  interesting. 
We  love  to  think  of  any  two  objects,  any  two  beings 
which  have  to  do  with  one  another  as  ministering 


284  The  Knowledge  of  God. 

each  to  each,  each  sending  to  the  other  something  in 
answer  to  that  which  it  receives.  That  fills  the  rela- 
tionship with  motion,  and  with  motion  come  light  and 
heat.  The  sun  and  the  earth,  the  insect  and  the  plant, 
the  nation  and  the  citizen,  the  teacher  and  the  pupil, 
the  parent  and  the  child,  the  sound  that  strikes  the 
rock  and  the  rock  which  gives  back  reverberation  to 
the  sound,  the  air  which,  filled  with  light,  gives  to  the 
light  its  substance  and  its  swiftness,  in  every  rela- 
tionship there  is  this  principle  of  reciprocity.  No- 
thing alone  is  thoroughly  alive ;  all  complete  life  sub- 
sists in  the  reaction  of  mutuality.  To  give  is  never 
perfect  life;  it  needs  the  complement,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  taking.  To  take  is  never  perfect  life;  it 
needs  the  complement,  the  fulfilment  of  giving. 

Jesus  declares  that  this  is  true  of  knowledge,  of  the 
knowledge  of  himself  and  God.  To  be  known  and 
to  know — these  two  together  make  the  fulness  of 
the  relation  of  lives  to  one  another. 

"  The  Father  knoweth  me."  Those  words  must 
have  summed  up  for  Jesus  a  large  part  of  the  mean- 
ing and  power  of  his  life.  They  must  have  brought 
oack  to  him  the  time  when,  as  a  child,  he  had  felt 
about  for  the  deepest  connection  of  his  newly  con- 
scious life,  and  behind  every  dearest  connection  with 
his  fellow-men  had  become  aware  that  the  Creator 
of  the  world,  the  Being  who  was  behind  all  other 
beings,  knew  him.  He  had  read  the  assurance  of 
that  knowledge  in  all  the  sacred  history  of  his  peo- 
ple. Then  he  had  found  the  confirmation  and  wit- 
ness of  it  in  his  own  soul.     And,    once  completely 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  285 

grasped  and  understood,  it  had  become  the  inspira' 
tion  and  the  strength  of  everything  he  was  and  did. 

I  am  not  speaking  now  of  that  which  was  unique 
and  singular  in  Jesus.  I  am  not  thinking  of  the 
peculiar  and  separate  relation  in  which  he  stood  to 
his  Father.  I  am  thinking  only  of  that  which  he 
shared  with  all  mankind.  Simply  as  man,  he  felt 
the  knowledge  of  God  reaching  out  and  laying  hold 
of  him.  He  felt  his  being  bosomed  on  the  divine 
intelligence.  "  Thine  eye  did  see  my  substance  yet 
being  imperfect,  and  in  thy  book  were  all  my  members 
written."  So  David  had  sung,  and  as  we  listen  to  his 
song  we  feel  how  in  that  knowledge  which  God  has 
of  him,  he  is  finding,  as  it  were,  his  naturalization 
into  the  universe.  He  is  becoming  able  to  count  him- 
self no  stray  and  foreign  particle.  What  God  knows 
has  its  place,  its  right,  within  the  universe  of  God. 
It  feels  that  knowledge  of  God  seizing  it  and  holding 
it  as  the  new  planet  flung  into  the  system  feels  gra- 
vitation seizing  it  and  holding  it  in  its  great,  warm, 
tender,  mighty  hand.  All  this  was  real  to  David. 
How  much  more  real  it  must  have  been  to  Jesus  ! 

It  would  be  easy,  if  we  had  time,  to  point  out 
what  this  sense  of  being  known  of  the  Father  brought 
to  Jesus.  It  brought  independence.  Out  of  the 
questionings  and  cavillings,  and  hootings,  and  re- 
vilings  of  the  crowd  he  retired  into  the  heart  of  it, 
and  was  strong.  I  see  him  enveloped  in  it,  as  in  a 
cloud  of  safety,  invisible  but  real,  while  he  stood  in 
the  tempest  of  reproach  and  objection  in  the  temple. 
"  My    Father    knoweth  me."     I   see   him  wrap  it 


286  The  Knowledge  of  God. 

around  him  like  a  cloak  as  he  faces  Pilate  upon 
Gabbatha.  It  brought  him  unity.  That  comprehen- 
sive certainty  of  being  known  involved  the  cradle, 
and  the  cross,  and  all  that  lay  between,  and  made 
one  single  total  life  out  of  it  all.  It  gave  him 
charity.  God's  knowledge  of  him  interpreted  to  him 
God's  knowledge  of  his  brethren,  and  let  him  freely 
leave  them  to  the  same  great  knowledge.  We 
enumerate  what  it  gave  to  him  We  tell  these 
blessings  of  it  one  by  one.  But,  after  all,  we  know 
that  it  was  more  to  him  than  our  enumeration  can 
describe.  It  was  the  element  in  which  he  lived. 
It  was  the  air  he  breathed.     It  was  his  life. 

And  now  what  shall  we  say  about  the  other  side  ? 
Was  there  no  response  to  this  knowledge  ?  Was  it 
only  that  the  Father  knew  the  Son  ?  Did  not  the 
Son  also  know  the  Father?  There  is  such  a  one- 
sided knowledge,  a  knowledge  in  which  one  is  only 
known,  and  the  other  only  knows.  The  wise  man 
knows  this  globe  on  which  we  live.  He  knows  the 
rock  andriver;  he  knows  the  animal  and  plant;  but 
animal  and  plant,  river  and  rock  do  not  know  him. 
His  live  intelligence  beats  on  the  surface  of  an  abso- 
lutely passive,  unconscious,  unresponsive  world.  It 
gets  no  answer  back.  But  it  is  altogether  different 
with  this  consciousness  of  Jesus.  "  The  Father 
knoweth  me,  and  I  know  the  Father,"  he  declares. 
The  very  knowing  that  he  was  known  by  God,  of 
which  I  have  just  now  been  speaking,  was  in  itself  a 
knowledge  of  God  by  him.  That  independence  and 
unity  and  charity  which  came  into  his  life  with  the 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  287 


certainty  that  he  was  held  in  the  intelligence  of  God, 
they  were  themselves  an  answer  to  the  recognized 
fact  of  the  divine  intelligence.  But  even  more 
directly  there  was  a  perception  of  what  God  was. 
There  was  a  recognition  by  the  sympathy  of  a  kin- 
dred nature  of  the  essential  character  of  the  nature 
into  which  it  found  itself  pressed.  What  shall  we 
say  ?  Was  it  not  like  the  answer  which  the  plant 
makes  to  the  sunshine  that  is  poured  upon  it  ?  The 
sunshine  knows  the  plant  in  radiance,  and  the  plant 
knows  the  sunshine  in  grateful  bloom. 

Jesus  was  no  agnostic.  No  dreary  conviction 
that  there  might  be  a  God,  but  that  if  there  were,  he 
were  hopelessly  hidden  from  mankind,  unknowable 
forever — no  such  dreary  negative  conviction  was 
possible  for  him.  He  knew  the  Father  by  the  direct 
perception  of  a  kindred  life.  Not  perfectly !  He 
himself  is  careful  to  tell  us  of  the  limitation  of  his 
knowledge.  The  prison  of  his  incarnation,  of  his 
abiding  in  mortality  enfolded  him.  But  he  knew 
God.  He  sent  back  adoration,  trust,  exuberant  love 
in  answer  to  the  recognized  care  which  was  always 
pouring  itself  upon  him.  Now  and  then,  in  the 
calm,  cool  night  between  the  hot  and  weary  days, 
when  he  went  apart  upon  the  silent  mountain-top 
and  prayed,  he  went  to  the  God  whom  he  knew,  that 
he  might  know  him  more  clearly.  But  the  knowl- 
edge was  a  continual  fact.  He  knew  the  Father,  as 
nature  knows  nature,  by  direct  perception. 

Surely  it  must  forever  stand  as  a  most  impressive 
and  significant  fact,  a  fact  that  no  man  who  is  try- 


The  Knowledge  of  God. 


ing  to  estimate  the  worth  and  strength  of  spiritual 
things  can  leave  out  of  his  account,  that  the  noblest 
and  most  perfect  spiritual  being  whom  this  world 
has  ever  seen,  the  being  whom  the  world  with  most 
amazing  unanimity  owns  for  its  spiritual  pattern  and 
leader,  was  sure  of  God.  I  cannot  get  rid  of  the  im- 
mense, the  literally  unmeasurable  meaning  and  val- 
ue of  that  fact.  It  comes  to  me  when  God  is  clear- 
est to  me,  bringing  me  new  and  yet  more  glorious 
assurance.  It  comes  to  me  when  doubt  is  with  me, 
and  I  know  my  doubt  is  a  mistake,  and  I  sit  even  in 
the  midst  of  doubt,  joyously  waiting  for  certainty ; 
as  the  watcher  for  sunrise  sits  joyously  expecting 
the  time  when  the  radiance  which  is  already  shining 
on  the  summits  of  the  hills  shall  pour  down  into  his 
valley  where  it  still  is  dark.  It  comes  to  me  in  sor- 
row and  in  joy,  in  hope  and  fear,  in  ignorance  and 
wisdom,  in  work  and  rest,  the  great  fact,  radiant  with 
significance,  that  Jesus  was  sure  of  and  believed  in 
and  knew  God. 

Nor  must  we  let  our  thoughts  rest  solely  on  this  large 
knowledge  of  nature  by  nature,  which  is  the  broadest 
statement  of  the  truth.  The  knowledge  which  the 
Father  had  of  the  Son,  and  the  answering  knowledge 
which  the  Son  had  of  the  Father,  referred  also  to  the 
details  of  action  as  well  as  to  the  elemental  facts  of 
existence.  "The  Father  knoweth  me;"  surely  when 
Jesus  says  that,  it  means  more  than  just  that  God 
was  aware  of  his  existence.  That  word  "  know  "  on 
the  lips  of  Jesus  is  always  a  deep  and  pregnant 
word.     To  know  any  man  is  not  merely  to  be  sure 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  289 


of  his  existence,  but  to  have  some  conception  of  what 
his  existence  signifies,  and  what  it  is  for.  For  God 
to  know  Jesus  was  for  God  to  have  in  his  soul  some 
purpose  and  will  about  the  life  of  Jesus.  The  Jesus 
whom  God  knew  was  not  a  mere  name,  not  even  a 
niere  nature.  It  was  Jesus  the  Saviour  of  mankind, 
Jesus  the  Teacher,  the  Revealer  of  Divinity,  the  Pat- 
tern of  Righteousness,  the  Victim  of  the  Cross  ! 

Is  not  this  truly  a  great  step  forward  ?  It  was 
much  for  Christ  that  he  was  never  for  a  moment  un- 
aware of  God's  existence.  It  was  much  that  every 
instant  he  felt  God's  being  under  his  being,  as  the 
ship  feels  the  ocean  under  its  great  sides ;  but  when 
we  add  to  this  the  definite  and  clear  conviction  that 
God  had  a  purpose  with  regard  to  every  deed 
which  filled  those  gracious  days,  how  much  is  add- 
ed !  Now  it  is  not  merely  a  flood  of  light  poured 
over  the  whole  life,  but  it  is  this  same  light  taken 
up  and  broken  into  countless  points  of  brilliance ;  the 
whole  experience  tremulous  and  palpitating  at  every 
promontory  with  the  consciousness  of  immediate 
communication  of  divinity.  The  miracle,  the  ser- 
mon, the  word  of  sympathy,  the  pang  of  suffering — 
it  was  not  merely  because  the  Son  saw  that  it  was 
good  and  right;  it  was  because  the  Father  wanted 
it,  and  willed  it,  that  it  came.  Here  is  transfigura- 
tion. Here  is  glory.  What  sense  of  drudgery, 
what  monotonousness  or  weariness  could  there  be  in  a 
life  like  that  ?  It  was  no  longer  simply  a  great  glassy 
ocean  flooded  with    the    sun.     Every    wave    of  the 

ocean  had  caught  its  own  little  sun,  and  the  whole 
19 


290  The  Knowledge  of  God. 

was  full  of  infinitely  varied  yet  identical  life  and 
light. 

And  now  to  this  detailed  knowledge  of  God,  which 
means  purpose  and  will,  to  this  also  comes  its  own 
response.  "The  Father knoweth  me."  That  means, 
"  God  has  a  will  for  every  act  of  mine."  What  then 
can  "  I  know  the  Father,"  mean,  except,  "  In  every 
act  of  mine,  I  do  the  Father's  will."  Obedience  be- 
comes the  organ  and  utterance,  nay  becomes  the 
substance  and  reality  of  knowledge  on  the  side  of 
him  who  is  aware  that  in  this  more  special  sense 
God  knows  him.  I  think  of  Jesus  on  that  day  when 
he  called  Lazarus  back  from  the  dead  to  life.  He 
travels  all  the  way  from  Galilee  to  Bethany.  At  last 
he  stands  beside  the  tomb.  His  soul  is  full  of  sym- 
pathy. He  sees  the  tears  and  feels  the  misery  of  his 
poor  friends.  The  dreadfulness  of  death  oppresses 
him.  Then  he  becomes  aware  of  a  will  of  God.  God 
knows  all  that  is  going  on  there,  the  whole  sad  sor- 
row, the  bereavement,  the  horror.  And  God  cannot 
know  anything  in  pure  passivity.  He  always  wants 
something  to  be  done  about  the  thing  he  knows. 
Every  knowledge  of  God  involves  and  issues  in  a 
will.  God's  will  then  shines  on  Jesus :  and  then  be- 
hold !  He  lifts  his  head.  His  face  shines  like  the 
sun !  The  gloom  is  gone  !  He  stretches  out  his 
hand !  He  opens  his  lips  with  the  cry  of  life ! 
"Lazarus,  come  forth!"  "And  he  that  was  dead 
came  forth,  bound  hand  and  foot  with  grave- 
clothes  ! " 

God's   will    and   Christ's   obedience !     Here   then 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  291 

there  is  the  perfect  mutualness,  the  absolute  under- 
standing and  harmony  of  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
If  it  were  not  the  morning  of  the  miracle  at  Bethany, 
but  the  awful  morning  of  the  cross,  it  would  be  still 
the  same.  "Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my 
spirit."  There,  in  those  words  of  completed  obedi- 
ence, the  mutual  knowledge  of  Father  and  Son  is 
perfect,  and  being  blends  with  being;  the  vail  and 
barrier  of  the  human  flesh  no  longer  hangs  between. 
And  so  as  it  concerns  this  first  division  of  our  sub- 
ject, have  we  not  reached  a  picture  of  existence  which 
may  well  enchain  us  with  its  richness  and  beauty. 
Father  and  Son  have  come  close  to  one  another.  In 
mutual  knowledge,  in  harmony  of  will  and  obedience 
they  are  absolutely  one.  Of  no  act  that  the  strong 
gentle  hands  do,  can  we  say  anything  but  this,  that 
Father  and  Son  together  do  it,  making  one  power, 
working  one  result.  Who  is  it  that  calms  the  sud- 
den tempest  on  the  lake  ?  It  is  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  It  is  God  in  Christ.  It  is  Christ  filled  with 
God !  Who  is  it  that  speaks  the  parable  of  the  prod- 
igal son,  instinct  with  divine  authority  and  wis- 
dom, tremulous  with  human  tenderness  and  sympa- 
thy? Is  it  not  the  divine  Father  and  the  human  Son, 
making  one  power,  that  utter  together  those  wonder- 
ful words  which  have  moved  almost  like  a  great  per- 
sonal presence  down  through  the  restless  or  the 
sluggish  generations  of  mankind  ?  "  My  Father 
worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work."  It  is  not  two  con- 
federates taking  hold  of  hands.  It  is  one  system  of 
power,  in  which  two  elements  perfectly  blend;  which 


292  The  Knowledge  of  God. 

is  a  fragment  and  not  a  whole  if  either  of  the  two 
be  lost;  which  beats  with  one  life-blood,  knows  but 
one  standard,  and  issues  at  last  embodied  and  ex- 
pressed in  one  perfect  unit  of  result.  That  simplicity 
and  richness,  wedded  to  each  other,  we  try  to  take 
into  our  understandings  when  we  hear  Jesus  say, 
"As  the  Father  knoweth  me  even  so  know  I  the 
Father." 

And  then  comes  St.  Paul.  Years  have  passed 
away.  The  life  and  work  of  Christ  have  become  the 
pattern  and  inspiration  of  the  world.  A  higher  and 
more  spiritual  standard  of  life  has  been  set  up.  St, 
Paul  is  always  stating  it.  He  states  it  in  that  pas- 
sage of  his  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  which  is  the 
second  of  our  texts.  Let  me  give  what  little  time 
remains  to  a  few  thoughts  upon  that  passage. 

"  Then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known,"  says 
Paul.  I  have  already  bidden  you  observe  how 
exactly  Paul's  hope  is  identical  with  Christ's  con- 
sciousness. A  knowledge  of  God  answering  to  God's 
knowledge  of  him,  that  is  what  St.  Paul  expects. 
And  the  correspondence  between  Paul  and  Jesus  is 
complete.  It  includes  both  of  the  two  kinds  of 
knowledge  which,  in  speaking  of  Jesus,  I  have  been 
trying  to  define. 

First,  it  includes  the  larger  knowledge  of  nature 
by  nature.  "  God  knows  me,"  says  St.  Paul.  "  He 
knows  me  as  the  Maker  knows  His  work.  He  knows 
me  as  the  Father  knows  the  child."  That  was  the 
fundamental  conviction  of  the  great  apostle.      Fie 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  293 

went  about  his  daily  work  enfolded  by  that  convic- 
tion. "  In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  be- 
ing," he  cried  to  the  Athenians.  But  that  convic- 
tion for  him  inevitably  involved  another.  If  the 
Father  knew  the  child,  then  it  must  be  in  the  child's 
power  to  know  the  Father.  Ignorance  he  could  un- 
derstand. Hindrance,  darkness,  perversion  and  mis- 
take, he  saw  them  everywhere.  But  the  power  to 
know  God  he  knew  was  in  man.  Some  time  certain- 
ly it  must  come  forth  and  be  powerful.  God  might 
be  unknown  to  many  men,  Athenians  and  others, 
but  God  was  not  unknowable  by  man,  not  unknow- 
able by  any  man  that  lived. 

St.  Paul,  like  Christ,  was  no  agnostic.  In  these  days, 
when  a  whole  school  of  philosophy  takes  upon  itself 
not  merely  to  disparage  the  poor  flickering  knowl- 
edge of  God  which  man  has  yet  attained,  but  to  draw 
a  sharp  line,  to  build  a  high  wall,  beyond  which  the 
knowledge  of  man  can  never  go,  it  is  good  to  resort 
to  the  assured  confidence  of  this  great  soul.  To 
dwell  upon  how  much  is  unknown  may  be  often  very 
good  for  us.  To  declare  anything  of  God  to  be  intrin- 
sically and  eternally  unknowable  by  man,  is  unreason- 
able. May  we  not  even  say  that  it  is  insolent,  insult- 
ing both  to  God  and  man.  Here  we  may  say,  as  St. 
Paul  essentially  says,  as  we  seemed  to  hear  Jesus  say 
when  we  were  listening  to  his  words,  that  to  know 
that  God  knows  us  is  itself  a  knowledge  of  God,  and 
promises  what  depth  of  future  knowledge  no  man 
can  begin  to  say. 

Let  us  keep  this  distinction  always  in  our  minds, 


294  The  Knowledge  of  God. 

and  so  be  always  full  of  hope.  The  unknown  is  not 
by  any  necessity  the  unknowable.  Now  there  is 
mercy  holding  me,  of  which  I  hardly  know  more 
than  that  it  is  there,  and  that  it  is  merciful.  There 
is  wisdom  guiding  me  of  whose  existence  I  am  cer- 
tainly aware,  but  whose  ways  I  cannot  comprehend. 
But  it  shall  not  be  always  so.  Now  I  am  known  per- 
fectly, but  I  know  in  part,  in  the  very  least  and  weak- 
est and  dimmest  way.  But  the  time  shall  come  when 
I  shall  know  as  I  am  known.  Let  me  be  sure  of  that, 
and  with  what  hope  I  live.  Nay,  it  is  more  than  hope. 
For  to  be  sure  that  such  a  knowledge  shall  be  mine 
some  day,  is  in  a  true  sense  to  know  now.  Such  a 
hope  for  the  future  is  a  possession  in  the  present. 

The  other  mutualness  of  knowledge  we  saw  was 
that  which  lay  between  a  special  will  or  purpose  of 
God  and  the  corresponding  activity  of  man.  That 
was  complete  in  Jesus.  To  the  completeness  of 
that  too  we  may  look  forward  in  ourselves.  "  He 
spake  and  it  was  done,"  says  David.  That  is  a  dec- 
laration of  the  oneness  of  God  with  His  creation. 
His  will  is  instantly  echoed  in  its  being  and  its  ac- 
tion. The  answer  is  so  instantaneous  and  sure  that 
the  oneness  between  His  will  and  His  world  is  per- 
fect; so  perfect  that  often  men's  eyes  have  not  been 
able  to  distinguish  one  from  the  other,  and  have  said 
the  world  was  God.  Is  not  that  a  magnificent  pic- 
ture of  the  oneness  which  we  would  have  between 
God's  will  and  our  action  ?  No  force  of  nature  ever 
fails  in  its  response.  The  seasons  in  their  coming 
and  their  going,  the  sun  in  its  rising  and  its  setting, 


The  Knowledge  of  God.  295 

the  tempests  and  lightnings,  fire  and  hail,  snow  and 
vapors,  wind  and  storm  fulfilling  his  word,  all  of 
these  are  absolute ;  they  never  vary ;  the  glory  of 
science  is  in  finding  out  how  invariable  they  are. 
They  are  of  lower  order.  They  are  of  easier  submis- 
sion. Their  obedience  then  is  just  a  type  and  pic- 
ture, just  an  image  and  a  prophecy,  of  what  shall 
come  to  pass  when  in  our  higher  world,  our  world 
of  free  thought  and  free  action,  we  too  shall  become 
as  obedient  to  God  as  are  wind,  fire,  lightning  and 
sunshine  in  their  lower  world. 

Oh  how  one  longs  for  it  sometimes !  With  per- 
fect freedom,  not  turned  into  machines,  still  keep- 
ing all  the  glory  of  our  liberty,  to  answer  perfectly 
to  every  will  of  God  with  absolute  obedience.  To 
do  the  right  because  it  is  His  will,  and  to  do  His  will 
because  it  is  right  always.  We  know  that  there 
alone  is  peace  and  power.  Such  a  standard  cuts 
right  across  our  ordinary  standards.  The  feeblest 
life,  perfectly  harmonized  thus  with  God's,  outshines 
the  mightiest  life  in  which  that  harmony  fails. 

Is  it  not  evident  that  the  great  hope  which  St. 
Paul  holds  up  before  us  all,  and  which  our  hearts  rec- 
ognize and  claim,  must  include  this  or  it  is  not  suffi- 
cient. Simply  to  know  God,  though  the  knowledge 
were  complete,  simply  to  know  God  if  it  were  possi- 
ble without  obedience,  would  be  a  barren  privilege. 
0  how  we  separate  our  knowing  and  our  obeying 
powers,  our  mental  and  our  moral  natures,  as  if  they 
could  be  separated,  as  if  either  of  them  could  live 
without  the  other  !     No,  the  promise  that  we  shall 


296  The  Knowledge  of  God. 

know  includes  the  promise  that  we  shall  obey  !  So 
it  attains  its  fullest  richness. 

When  we  say  that,  eternity  springs  into  life  and 
lives.  No  longer  a  bare  doctrine,  no  longer  a  great 
arid  fact,  that  we  shall  live  forever,  but  a  great,  actual 
reality  !  Hark,  through  the  atmosphere  of  that  be- 
lief can  you  not  hear  the  music  of  the  activity  which 
fills  the  streets  of  the  New  Jerusalem  ?  I  hear  the  feet 
hurrying  over  the  glassy  pavements, the  voices  calling 
to  each  other  in  the  joy  of  service,  the  ringing  of  the 
hammers  on  the  anvils  where  in  the  fire  of  the  love 
of  God  eht  perfect  obedience  of  His  redeemed  is 
forging  his  perfect  will  into  the  instruments  of  per- 
fect deeds. 

Have  I  wasted  your  Sunday  morning  with  abstract 
truths,  and  far-away  visions  of  the  future?  It  would 
be  waste  indeed  if  abstract  truth  must  not  always  lie 
at  the  heart  of  concrete  action,  and  if  the  visions  of 
the  future,  thoroughly  believed,  were  not  the  realities 
of  the  present.  What  Christ  was  we  shall  be  some  day, 
and  because  we  shall  be  it  some  day,  we  may  begin  to 
be  it  now.  What  is  the  meaning  and  result  of  all  that 
I  have  said  to  you  this  morning  ?  0  my  friends,  it  is 
this !  You  need  not  live  alone,  for  you  may,  if  you 
will,  know  and  obey  God.  You  and  God,  you  and 
God,  one  system  of  power  knit  together  in  mutual 
knowledge,  and  in  common  standards !  That  is  what 
Christ  claimed  you  for.  Give  yourself  to  Him,  and 
you  shall  come  to  that.  Behold  Him  !  Hear  Him  ! 
Come  by  Him  to  the  Father,  and  then  live  !  0  Christ, 
draw  us,  thy  Father's  children,  to  our  Father  now ! 


SERMON  XVII. 

"  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  departed  from  Saul,   and  an  evil  spirit 
from  the  Lord  troubled  him." — 1  Samukl  xvi.  14. 

WE  probably  should  be  surprised  if  we  under- 
stood how  very  little  people  really  know 
about  the  Bible  and  what  is  in  it.  We  deceive  our- 
selves regarding  our  own  knowledge.  The  sacred 
Book  has  lain  so  long  upon  our  tables,  and  we  are  so 
familiar  with  its  outside  look,  that  we  get  a  vague 
idea  that  we  have  read  it.  But  if  we  really  brought 
ourselves  to  the  point  we  should  be  amazed  at  our 
own  inability  to  tell  even  the  simplest  of  its  stories 
rightly.  And  we  imagine  sometimes  that  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  know  more  about  the  Book  than 
we  do ;  but  every  now  and  then  something  gives  us 
a  glimpse  of  what  they  do  know,  and  we  are  startled 
at  the  imperfectness  and  carelessness  of  their  know- 
ledge of  the  richest  and  most  familiar  and  most 
important  Book  in  all  the  world.  There  are  many 
of  you  who  are  eager  for  each  new  book,  who  are 
anxious  if  each  Saturday  night  does  not  find  you 
read  up  to  the  line  of  the  week's    new    literature, 

297 


298       An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

who  probably  never  read  the  graphic,  brilliant, 
stirring  story  of  Saul,  the  first  King  of  Israel,  in 
all  your  lives.  We  circulate  the  Bible  by  the 
million.  Some  parts  of  it  we  read  as  a  religious 
duty.  But  there  are  whole  books  of  it  teeming  with 
interest  which  few  of  us  ever  touch.  One  sometimes 
feels  that  some  day  or  other  a  great  increase  of 
the  spiritual  power  of  the  Bible  will  come  with  what 
will  be  almost  a  re-discovery  of  its  literary  attract- 
iveness. When  people  break  through  the  strange 
feeling  which  has  gathered  around  it  that  it  is  dull 
and  unreal,  and  find  that  it  is  the  most  interesting 
book  in  all  the  world,  then  they  will  be  open  for  its 
deeper  power  to  lay  hold  upon  their  consciences  and 
hearts. 

Saul's  life,  as  it  is  told  to  us  in  the  first  Book  of 
Samuel,  is  the  perfection  of  a  tragedy.  If  it  were 
not  the  story  of  a  real  man  who  lived  in  the  Jewish 
tribe  of  Benjamin,  it  might  be  the  most  sublime  alle- 
gory that  ever  was  written  of  human  life  in  the 
tragical  aspect  of  it,  which  is  always  suggesting  it- 
self, and  sometimes  presses  itself  upon  us  so  urgently 
that  we  can  see  no  other.  There  is  one  chapter,  the 
tenth  chapter  of  the  first  Book  of  Samuel,  which  is 
as  fresh  as  a  spring  morning.  A  farmer's  boy,  light- 
hearted,  innocent  and  strong,  striding  away  over  the 
hills  to  find  a  flock  of  asses  that  had  wandered  from 
his  father's  fields.  He  talks  with  his  servant;  he 
questions  the  group  of  girls  whom  he  meets  at  a 
town  gate.  At  last  he  meets  a  venerable  prophet, 
who  tells  him  what  fills  his  young  frank  eyes  with 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.       299 

wonder,  and  makes  his  heart  leap  with  the  myste- 
rious birth  of  noble  ambitions — that  he  is  to  be 
the  first  King  of  the  new  Kingdom  of  Israel.  It  is 
all  as  fresh  and  bright  as  innocence  and  hope  can 
make  it.  Then  there  is  another  chapter,  the  twenty- 
eighth  of  the  same  Book,  which  is  like  the  bleakest, 
bitterest  day  when  the  year  is  dying  in  December. 
The  same  Saul  grown  old  and  wretched,  with  his 
country  all  in  confusion,  with  his  conscience  tortured 
by  memories,  the  subject  of  insane  fits  of  melancholy 
and  frenzy,  encamped  now  with  his  army  on  a  cold 
hillside,  with  the  Philistines  camped  opposite  to  him, 
and  knowing  that  he  must  fight  them  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  that  they  are  too  strong  for  him.  This  Saul 
at  midnight  creeps  stealthily  across  the  mountain 
to  find  a  witch,  who  brings  up  before  him  an  appari- 
tion of  Samuel  the  prophet,  the  same  who  had  first 
told  him  that  he  should  be  king;  who  tells  him  now 
out  of  his  ghostly  lips  that  God  has  become  his  ene- 
my, and  will  rend  his  kingdom  out  of  his  hands. 
All  is  as  dark  and  bitter  as  guilt  and  despair  can 
make  it.  Jealousy,  superstition,  frenzy,  pride,  have 
closed  down  together  on  this  ruined  man.  And  what 
is  the  misery  of  this  half-savage  life,  we  say,  but  just, 
in  strong  bold  colors  the  picture  of  what  our 
smoothed  and  civilized  lives  are  ?  It  is  the  same 
thing,  only  more  vivid.  The  same  tragedy  of  the 
changing  life  is  everywhere.  Everywhere  are  bright 
enthusiastic  boyhoods  turning  into  the  guilty  and 
desperate  old  age  of  weary  Sauls. 

The  verse  which  I  have  taken  for  our  text  this 


300      An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

morning  contains  one  statement  about  this  tragical 
history  of  King  Saul,  which  well  deserves  our  study. 
It  is  one  of  those  epitomes  of  a  life  which  open  the 
deepest  questions.  It  is  said  that  "  the  spirit  of 
the  Lord  departed  from  him,  and  an  evil  spirit  from 
the  Lord  troubled  him."  We  catch  at  once  the  char- 
acter of  the  representation.  It  is  entirely  realistic. 
There  is  a  vivid  picture  in  it  all.  God  is  seen  by  him 
who  writes  it,  standing  surrounded  by  spirits  who 
are  in  His  control,  to  be  sent  wherever  He  shall 
please.  Some  of  them  are  good  and  are  his  spirits 
pre-eminently ;  others  of  them  are  evil,  the  spirits  that 
vex  and  torture  and  distress  the  men  to  whom  they 
come.  God  sends  these  spirits  as  he  pleases.  He 
speaks  to  a  spirit  of  blessing  and  the  spirit  flies  to 
make  some  saint  better  and  happier.  He  turns  to  a 
spirit  of  evil,  and  he  hurries  to  do  his  dreadful  work 
of  punishment  on  some  poor  sinner.  God's  spirit  of 
good  has  been  with  Saul,  but  at  one  point,  one  crisis 
in  his  life  that  spirit  departed  from  him,  and  an  evil 
spirit  from  the  Lord  troubled  him. 

That  picture  of  the  court  of  God  with  its  company 
of  various  spirits  has  grown  dim.  No  such  clear  and 
objective  picture  stands  before  us.  But  the  truth 
still  remains,  which  that  picture  tried  to  express,  the 
truth  that  the  evil  spirit,  like  the  good  spirit,  came 
out  of  God's  presence ;  that  when  the  life  of  Saul  had 
altered,  and  the  blessing  of  his  early  innocence  had 
left  him,  it  was  not  as  if  he  had  been  cast  out  into  a 
region  over  which  God  has  no  control,  not  as  if  God 
had  nothing  to  do  with  him  any  longer.     As  the  old 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.      301 

blessing  had  come  out  of  his  relationship  to  God,  so 
the  new  curse  came  out  of  that  same  relationship. 
As  it  was  God  who  made  his  first  life  noble  and 
happy,  so  it  was  God  who  made  his  last  life  desperate 
and  wretched.  He  could  not  get  outside  of  God. 
Whatever  spirit,  good  or  evil,  came  to  him,  came  to 
him  from  the  Lord. 

This  is  a  strange,  perhaps  at  first  it  sounds  as  if  it 
were  a  dreadful,  truth.  But  we  shall  understand  it 
better  if  we  look  and  see  what  were  the  circum- 
stances of  the  change  when  the  evil  spirit  supplanted 
the  good  in  the  King's  life.  There  were  two  acts  in 
Saul's  life,  occurring  near  together,  which  seemed  to 
mark  the  point  of  change.  One  was  the  unwarran- 
ted performance  of  a  religious  rite.  The  people  were 
in  a  sad  strait.  They  had  been  crowded  and  driven 
by  the  Philistines.  Saul  was  waiting,  as  he  had 
been  bidden,  for  Samuel  to  come  and  offer  the  sac- 
rifice which  was  to  call  down  God's  blessing  on  the 
host  as  they  met  their  terrible  enemy.  When  Samuel 
did  not  come,  Saul  grew  impatient ;  and  by-and-by, 
neglecting  every  command,  casting  every  scruple  to 
the  winds,  he  offered  the  burnt-offering  himself. 
Not  long  after  came  the  second  action.  Saul  had 
gone  against  the  Amalekites.  Samuel,  speaking  for 
the  Lord,  had  bidden  him  to  conquer  them  and  to 
destroy  them.  The  King  did  conquer  them,  but  for 
the  ostentatious  glory  of  his  own  triumph  and  for  a 
splendid  sacrifice  to  God,  he  spared  the  life  of  their 
King  Agag  and  the  choicest  of  their  sheep  and  oxen. 
These  were  the  two.     It  does  not  seem  that  the  mad- 


302      An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

ness  and  misery  were  sent  in  direct  punishment  for 
these  two  actions,  but  these  actions  mark  the  time 
when  the  King's  life  begins  to  change.  The  clouds 
begin  to  gather.  God  seems  to  be  against  him.  The 
winds  that  used  to  help  him  on,  blow  now  in  his 
face,  and  all  grows  harder  and  darker  till  the  bitter 
end.  They  seem  only  trifling  actions,  but  they  both 
mean  the  same  thing.  They  mean  rebellion.  Self- 
will  is  the  essence  of  them  both.  They  mean  that 
he  who  had  been  frankly  obedient,  only  asking  to 
know  the  will  of  God  that  he  might  do  it,  now 
chooses  to  do  his  own  will.  That  is  the  point  where 
the  change  comes.  From  the  time  when  he  begins 
to  disobey  God,  God  works  against  him,  and  the 
prophet  of  God,  who  in  the  first  scene  was  blessing 
him  and  telling  him  of  his  great  mission,  in  the  last 
scene  appears,  rising  like  a  ghost  to  rebuke  him  and 
tell  him  of  his  doom ;  as  the  hopes  and  chances  of 
a  man's  early  youth  rise  ghostlike  before  him,  when 
he  has  grown  old,  to  reproach  him  with  the  failure 
of  his  life. 

Now  I  think  we  shall  understand  this  story  best 
if  we  consider  how  wide  the  law  of  life  is  that  it 
opens  to  us.  The  law  is  that  a  beneficent  power,  if 
we  obey  it,  blesses  and  helps  us ;  but  the  same  power, 
if  we  disobey  it,  curses  and  ruins  us.  That  law  runs 
everywhere.  See  how  most  manifestly  it  is  true  in 
nature.  There  was  a  time  when  the  ignorance  of 
man  divided  all  natural  forces  into  two  hostile  camps. 
One  army  was  fighting  against  man.  The  other 
army  was  fighting  for  his  good.     The  sunshine  was 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.       303 

his  friend,  the  cruel  lightning  was  his  enemy.  But 
what  have  we  learnt  since,  as  science  has  brought  us 
more  into  the  soul  of  nature  ?  Is  it  not  this,  that 
there  is  no  force  which  is  deliberately  set  to  do  man 
harm ;  that  the  most  hostile  force,  if  we  can  understand 
and  obey  it,  treat  it  after  its  laws  and  nature,  becomes 
our  friend  and  ally?  The  cruel  lightning  carries  our 
tenderest  messages  like  a  pitying  slave.  Everywhere, 
man  says  that  he  rules  nature  and  she  does  his  work. 
The  truth  is  that  she  does  none  of  his  work  except  as 
he  obeys  her,  docilely  studies  her  ways,  and  suits  him- 
self to  them.  You  obey  fire,  and  she  will  forge  your 
iron  and  cook  your  dinner.  You  disobey  fire,  and 
she  will  sweep  your  city  in  a  night  off  the  face  of 
the  earth.  This  is  the  meaning  of  applied  science: 
man  humbly  learning  nature  and  by  obedience  turn- 
ing her  from  his  enemy  into  his  friend. 

The  same  is  true  of  government  and  law.  Here 
are  you  sitting  to-day  peacefully  in  your  house,  with- 
out a  fear,  and  yonder  in  the  jail  is  some  poor  wretch 
for  whom  there  is  no  escape  until  the  dreadful  day 
when  he  shall  be  led  out  to  his  dreadful  death  upon 
the  scaffold.  The  same  government,  the  same  law 
makes  your  safety  and  his  danger.  The  same  bene- 
ficent power  protects  your  life  and  takes  his  life  away. 
The  change  came  with  his  disobedience.  There  is 
something  picturesque  and  awful  in  the  instant 
change  which  a  sudden  crime  makes  in  the  whole  re- 
lation which  a  man  holds  to  the  state  he  lives  in.  He 
has  grown  up  protected  by  his  nation's  law.  It  cared 
for  him  es?en  before  his  birth,  and  there  has  never 


304      An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

been  a  moment  in  his  boyhood,  youth  or  manhood, 
when  its  shield  has  not  been  over  him  and  its  sword 
drawn  to  strike  down  any  one  who  dared  to  do  him 
harm.  Some  day  he  does  a  sudden  crime,  he  diso- 
beys the  law,  he  takes  a  brother's  life,  and  instantly, 
as  his  dagger  pierces  and  the  life-blood  flows,  every- 
thing alters.  The  law  which  has  protected  him  be- 
comes his  enemy.  Her  sword  is  pointed  at  his 
heart.  Her  shield  is  spread  before  him,  only  lest 
any  one  should  snatch  him  from  her  certain  punish- 
ment. Instead  of  trusting  in  her  quiet  smile  he 
quails  under  her  pitiless  eye.  She  is  transformed 
the  moment  that  he  disobeys. 

The  same  is  true  about  a  man's  relation  to  the  art 
he  practices.  Find  out  and  thoroughly  obey  its 
fundamental  principles  and  all  the  genius  of  your 
art  is  with  you.  Its  history  and  tradition  are  the 
solid  backing  of  your  life.  Every  man  who  ever 
worked  in  it,  or  who  is  working  in  it  to-day,  is  your 
ally.  But  disobey  its  principles,  be  wilful,  try  to  ex- 
cel or  shine,  not  by  conformity  to  its  nature  but  by 
some  fantastic  violation  of  it,  and  all  your  art  con- 
tends against  you  and  balks  you  at  every  step. 

One  illustration  more.  All  this  is  true  about  our 
friends.  We  obey  our  nobler  friends  and  their 
friendship  helps  us.  We  disobey  them,  and  their 
friendship  harms  us.  Obedience  seems  a  hard 
word  to  use  of  friendship,  and  yet  there  must  be 
obedience,  there  must  be  docile  conformity,  a  shap- 
ing of  your  life  upon  that  higher  life,  a  reaching 
up,  a  stretching  out  of  what  you  are,  to  try  to  match 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.       305 

what  he  is.  If  there  is  that,  then  how  his  nature 
ministers  to  yours  ;  how  first  as  standard,  then  as  im- 
pulse, and  continually  as  elevation  and  as  joy  he 
gives  himself  to  you.  These  are  the  commonplaces  of 
every  ennobling  friendship.  But  if  there  is  no  obe- 
dience ;  if,  bound  to  his  higher  life  by  obligation  or  by 
that  mere  liking  which  may  have  no  relation  to  your 
character,  you  insist  on  living  your  own  life,  what 
then  is  the  result  ?  How  he  rebukes  you  every  day. 
How  every  deed  he  does  exasperates  you.  How,  by- 
and-by  you  hate  the  goodness  which  you  will  not 
imitate  and  which  builds  up  a  wall  between  you  and 
your  friend,  whom  you  would  like  to  have  a  man  just 
like  yourself.  Was  not  Judas  cursed  by  the  same 
friendship  with  Jesus  that  perfected  John  ?  And  if 
we  try  to  picture  to  ourself  the  life  of  a  man  living 
in  constant  association  with  the  noblest  people,  yet 
absolutely  wilful  and  refusing  to  conform  to  any  of 
the  higher  laws  of  life  which  they  are  always  set- 
ting before  him,  we  shall  surely  see  him  in  our  ima- 
gination growing  more  and  more  reckless  and  defi- 
ant. Yes,  men  are  ruined  by  their  best  and  dearest 
friends — not  simply  by  wanton  indulgence  and  fool- 
ish fondness,  but  by  the  noble  example  that  is  never 
followed  and  the  noble  invitation  never  answered. 

These  are  the  illustrations  of  our  Law.  They  show 
the  absolute  necessity  of  obedience  everywhere. 
Obedience  is  the  only  key  that  can  unlock  the  treas- 
ures of  nature  or  of  man.  Obedience  has  an  abso- 
lute power.  To  the  obedient  man  nothing  can  re- 
fuse its  richness.  Nature  flies  open  and  takes  man. 
20 


306      An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

into  her  inmost  heart.  Government  opens  her  arms 
and  surrounds  him  with  her  most  secure  protection. 
The  best  men  make  their  goodness  as  much  his  as 
theirs.  But  if  obedience  is  not  there,  nothing  can 
take  its  place;  no  mere  excitement  of  the  taste,  no 
rapturous  affection  can  cover  over  and  change  the 
fact  of  wilfulness.  This  was  so  strongly  stated  by 
Samuel  in  his  rebuke  to  Saul.  Saul  said  that  he  had 
disobeyed  God  because  he  honored  Him  and  wanted 
to  do  Him  supreme  reverence.  He  had  saved  the 
sheep  and  oxen  when  Jehovah  had  bade  him  destroy, 
in  order  to  sacrifice  to  Jehovah.  "  And  Samuel  said, 
Hath  the  Lord  as  great  delight  in  burnt-offerings  and 
sacrifices  as  in  obeying  the  voice  of  the  Lord  ?  Be- 
hold, to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken 
than  the  fat  of  rams."  They  are  great  words.  They 
are  words  full  of  the  strength  of  life.  If  you  would 
be  strong  you  must  learn  to  obey.  Self-will  is  weak- 
ness; but  to  find  the  nature  and  will  of  everything 
that  is  higher  than  you  are,  and  bend  yourself  to  it 
with  complete  docility,  that  makes  the  richest  treas- 
ure it  possesses,  yours.  O  learn  to  obey,  learn  to 
obey  !  Obedience  is  the  only  mastery  and  strength. 
And  now  let  us  return  to  the  description  which  is 
given  of  the  disastrous  change  in  the  life  of  Saul. 
"  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  departed  from  him,  and  an 
evil  spirit  from  the  Lord  troubled  him."  This  phrase, 
"an  evil  spirit  from  the  Lord,"  is  used  again  and  again 
to  account  for  the  disturbed  and  wretched  life  which 
the  unhappy  monarch  now  began  to  live.  What 
does  it  mean  but  just  this  truth,  which  we  have  been 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.      307 

studying,  brought  up  and  found  to  be  also  true  in  its 
application  to  God.  The  truth  is  that  every  benefi- 
cent power  which  helps  us  so  long  as  we  obey  it, 
turns  by  its  own  nature  and  harms  and  hinders  us 
so  soon  as  we  are  disobedient.  Is  this  then  true  of 
God  ?  If  God  is  the  most  beneficent  of  all  powers, 
the  central  goodness  of  the  universe,  it  cannot  but 
be  true  of  Him.  "  I  form  the  light  and  create  dark- 
ness," says  Jehovah  in  Isaiah.  "  I  make  peace  and 
create  evil."  "They  rebelled  and  vexed  his  Holy 
Spirit,  therefore  He  was  turned  to  be  their  enemy, 
and  He  fought  against  them."  So  it  is  said  about 
God  and  his  people.  It  is  an  idea  which  runs  through 
all  the  Bible.  In  many  forms  it  is  continually  reap- 
pearing. It  must  be  so,  for  God  in  the  Bible  is  uni 
versal.  He  fills  all  things.  No  creature  of  his  can 
creep  away  out  of  his  sight,  and  live  in  a  realm  with 
which  He  has  nothing  to  do.  And  God  in  the  Bible 
is  positive.  No  life  can  lie  here  close  to  his  life,  and 
not  be  affected  in  some  way  by  that  power  of  right- 
eousness. He  must  be  something  to  us;  what  he 
shall  be  to  us  depends  on  what  we  are  to  him.  Saul 
is  obedient,  and  God  is  brightness,  courage,  hope, 
happiness.  Saul  disobeys,  and  his  soul  becomes 
melancholy,  gloomy,  irritable,  suspicious,  envious, 
distracted.  Did  the  God  who  made  the  light  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  making  of  this  darkness 
afterwards  ?  How  shall  he  think  of  Saul  in  his 
desperate  old  age  ?  Is  that  mountain  over  which  he 
climbs  in  the  dark  to  find  the  witch  of  Endor  in  her 
cave,  somewhere  quite  outside  the  world  where  God 


308      An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

is  everything — outside  the  world  in  which  lay  the 
sunny  valleys  of  Benjamin,  along  which  the  young 
Saul  had  passed  seeking  his  father's  asses?  No,  it  is 
the  same  world;  a  world  capable  of  holding  such  di- 
verse scenes  because  it  is  all  under  the  same  God. 
Where  it  opens  itself  to  Him  it  is  He  that  makes  its  sun- 
shine. Where  it  hides  itself  from  Him  it  is  no  less  He 
that  makes  its  shadow.  Without  the  sun  there  could 
be  no  more  the  depth  of  the  shadow  than  the  bright- 
ness of  the  light;  and  if  there  had  been  no  God,  the 
bitterness  of  Saul's  old  age  would  have  been  as  im- 
possible as  the  beautiful  happiness  of  his  boyhood. 

It  bewilders  us  to  think  how  far-reaching  this 
truth  is.  So  long  as  God  is  in  the  universe,  every 
soul  that  is  in  the  universe  must  feel  His  power.  No 
space  can  be  so  wide,  no  time  so  long  as  to  exhaust 
His  influence.  He  that  obeys,  must  feel  the  ever- 
present  God  in  joy.  He  that  disobeys  must  feel 
Him  in  pain  everywhere  and  forever.  These  are 
the  terrible  necessities  of  obedience  and  disobedience. 
We  may  state  it ;  the  Bible  often  does  state  it  judi- 
cially. We  may  speak  of  God's  vengeance.  It  may 
seem  to  be  the  angry  revenge  of  one  who  has  been 
insulted  and  ignored.  We  may  picture  to  ourselves 
His  wrath.  With  realistic  fancy  we  may  imagine  to 
ourselves  the  flames  of  His  anger  consuming  the 
rebellious  souls,  which  yet  are  so  like  him  who  pun- 
ishes them  that  they  can  never  die.  Such  pictures 
have  their  power,  as  the  crudest,  coarsest  representa- 
tives of  the  essential  truth  that  to  the  disobedient  God 
must  come  in  suffering,  as  He  comes  to  the  obedient 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.      309 

in  joy.  The  essential  truth  of  heaven  and  hell  is  in- 
eradicable in  the  universe.  But  greater  and  truer  than 
any  picture  of  angry  vengeance,  more  solemn,  more 
sublime,  more  impressive  to  the  fear  of  a  reasonable 
and  thoughtful  man,  there  is  the  mighty  image  of  God 
standing  in  the  centre  of  all  things.  And  all  things 
have  to  touch  Him.  And  as  all  things  touch  Him,  ac- 
cording to  their  characters,  he  becomes  to  them  bless- 
ing or  curse.  He  is  the  happiness  of  obedience,  and 
the  misery  of  disobedience  throughout  his  world.  He 
looks  with  sympathetic  joy  or  with  profoundest  pity 
on  the  souls  He  judges,  but  the  judgments  both  come 
from  Him.  The  light  hand  and  the  left  hand,  are 
both  His.  Burning  there  like  the  sun  of  all  the 
world,  He  must  be  a  comforting  and  guiding  light,  or 
a  consuming  fire — one  or  the  other — to  every  soul. 

Is  this  all  theory  ?  At  the  best  is  it  all  a  revelation 
of  something  of  which  otherwise  we  could  have  had 
no  knowledge  ?  Or  is  there  anything  in  our  expe- 
rience that  testifies  to  such  a  double  power  belonging 
necessarily  to  the  very  existence  of  a  God  ?  If  in 
our  lives  there  has  been  any  difference  between 
those  days  in  which  we  tried  and  those  in  which  we 
did  not  try  to  do  God's  will ;  any  such  difference  as 
made  us  feel  on  the  first  set  of  days  thankful  and 
glad,  and  on  the  other  class  of  days  wretched  and 
almost  indignant  that  there  was  a  God  in  heaven; 
then  we  do  know  this  truth  of  Saul's  life  in  our 
own  life.  You  do  wrong.  You  have  chosen  to 
do  wrong.  You  are  sitting  here  Math  your  bad 
choice  enshrined  in  your  heart.     You  did  it   yester- 


310      An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

day.  You  mean  to  do  it  again  to-morrow.  You  are 
deliberately  and  wilfully  disobedient.  Tell  me,  is  it 
the  same  to  you  that  in  the  heavens,  and  pervading  all 
the  earth,  there  is  a  power  of  righteousness,  a  great 
pure,  dear  Being,  whose  child  you  are,  who  loves 
you,  who  has  a  right  to  your  obedience,  whom  you 
are  disobeying — is  it  all  the  same  to  you  as  if 
there  were  no  God,  as  if  that  choice  of  yours  were 
a  mere  whim  of  your  own  fancy,  made  in  the 
face  of  no  eternal  righteousness  and  against  the 
protest  of  no  pleading  love  ?  Would  it  be  then  as 
dogged,  as  obstinate,  as  bitter,  as  poisonous  a  thing 
in  all  your  life  as  it  is  now  ?  Ah,  a  man  has  to  hug 
his  sin  very  tight  that  the  almost  despotic  love  of 
God  may  not  wrest  it  from  him.  He  has  to  hide  its 
venom  very  deep  in  his  blood,  that  the  great  physi- 
cian may  not  find  it  out  and  kill  it.  And  just  so  far 
as  you  are  worse  to-day  for  living  under  the  grace 
of  a  God  who  has  been  trying  all  these  years  to  make 
you  better,  just  so  far  as  the  truth  that  you  have 
heard  has  made  you  more  callous,  and  the  duties  you 
have  had  put  before  you  have  made  you  more  faith- 
less, just  so  far  as  you  have  not  merely  lost  the  fresh- 
ness of  your  youth  but  have  grown  hard  and  bitter 
from  living  in  a  world  that  teemed  forever  with  the 
invitations  to  truth  and  charity,  just  so  far  that  has 
come  to  you  which  came  to  King  Saul.  Not  merely 
"  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  has  departed  from  you,"  but 
"  an  evil  spirit  from  the  Lord  has  troubled  you." 

Here  is  the  fatal  power  of  disobedience,  of  self- 
will.    It  makes  God  our  enemy  and  turns  His  power 


A  n  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.       311 

against  us.  Not  that  the  worst  sin  you  or  I  can  do 
will  make  him  cease  to  love  us.  Ah,  that  cannot  be  ! 
And  that  is  the  tragiealness  of  it  all ;  the  certain ty 
that  he  loves  us  still,  even  while  he  "is  turned  to 
be  our  enemy."  Do  you  see  Jesus  sitting  on  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  looking  down  upon  Jerusalem? 
Does  he  love  that  fair  and  rebellious  city  ?  We  do 
not  begin  to  know  how  He  loved  her.  We  must  be 
the  God  he  was,  and  the  man  he  was  or  we  cannot 
begin  to  know.  Can  he  save  her?  If  he  could,  he 
surely  would  not  be  sitting  here  !  But,  such  is  the 
mystery  of  moral  nature  and  of  responsibility,  it  is 
himself  he  cannot  save  her  from.  And  what  is  the 
essence  of  her  curse  ?  Why  is  this  city  on  the  Syrian 
Hills  doomed  to  a  fall  of  which  no  other  city  in  the 
world  is  capable  ?  Because  of  his  feet  that  have  trod 
her  pavement,  and  his  words  that  have  sounded  in 
her  ears.  "  0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem ! "  u  If  I  had  not 
come  and  spoken  unto  them  they  had  not  had  sin." 
Here  is  the  fatal  power  of  disobedience.  Without 
quenching  the  unquenchable  love,  it  turns  the  divine 
nature  against  us,  in  the  same  overwhelmingness,  by 
the  same  necessity  with  which,  if  we  were  only 
obedient,  that  nature  would  help  us  and  bring  us  to 
perfection. 

In  this  truth  of  ours  lies  certainly  one  key  to  a 
question  which  theologians  have  very  much  debated. 
Wherein  lay  the  power  of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus? 
What  was  the  atonement  he  accomplished  ?  Did  the 
change  which  he  wrought  come  in  God  or  man? 
But  we  have  seen  how  man's  disobedience  inevitably 


312       An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

made  a  change  in  God — not  to  destroy  His  love,  but 
to  set  His  loving  nature  into  hostility  to  the  soul 
that  would  not  do  his  will.  And  if  the  life  and  death 
of  Jesus  breaks  down  in  penitence,  as  we  know  it 
does,  the  self-will  of  man,  and  make  him  once  more 
gratefully,  loyally  obedient,  what  then?  The 
change  in  God  must  follow.  Not  the  restoral  of  a 
love  that  was  withheld,  but  the  free  utterance  for  help 
and  culture  of  a  love  that  has  been  never  held  back, 
but  which  has,  by  the  man's  false  position,  been  com- 
pelled to  work  against  him.  The  wind  is  blowing 
all  the  time.  The  man  is  walking  dead  against  it, 
and  it  buffets  him  and  is  his  enemy.  You  turn  the 
man  round  and  set  him  walking  with  the  wind. 
The  wind  blows  on  just  as  before.  But  now  it  is  the 
man's  friend.  The  wind  has  not  changed,  and  yet, 
with  the  man's  change,  how  completely  the  wind 
has  changed  for  him. 

How  clear  this  makes  the  great  question  of  every 
man's  life.  Is  God  with  you  or  against  you,  0  my 
friend  ?  Is  the  power  which  comes  out  from  Him 
to  you  a  power  of  help  or  harm  ?  It  must  be  one  or 
the  other.  Over  a  broad  open  plain  there  blows  a 
strong  steady  wind.  It  never  stops,  it  never  chan- 
ges. All  over  the  plain  there  are  men  and  women 
on  their  journeys.  Hear  them  cry  out.  "  This  wind, 
this  dreadful  wind ! "  cries  one,  all  out  of  breath  and 
gasping.  "  Hew  bitter  it  is,  how  cruel,  how  it 
hates  me!"  "This  wind,  this  blessed  wind  !  "  cries 
another,  within  hail  of  him.  "  How  kind  it  is,  how 
helpful,  how  it  loves  me !  "     Are  there  two  winds,  or 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.      313 

has  the  one  fickle  wind  its  favorites  ?  No,  the  one 
constant  wind  is  blowing  steadily  and  is  no  respecter 
of  persons ;  but  one  man  has  set  his  face  against  it 
and  the  other  man  is  walking  with  it.  That  is  the 
reason  why  it  seems  to  hate  the  one  and  love  the 
other. 

Through  this  great  open  world  moves  God  like  a 
strong  wind  or  spirit,  finding  out  all  the  public  and 
the  secret  places  of  the  life  of  man.  In  the  breath 
of  that  spirit  we  are  all  journeying;  no  one  can 
escape  for  a  moment.  But  while  your  brother  at  your 
side  is  full  of  the  sense  of  God's  love,  to  you  God 
seems  the  hindrance  of  your  life ;  His  righteousness 
defeats  your  plans,  His  purity  rebukes  your  lust,  His 
nature  and  being  smite  you  in  the  face  like  a  blast 
that  blows  bitter  and  cold  from  a  far  off  judgment 
day.  Does  God  hate  you  and  love  your  brother? 
No,  he  loves  you  both:  but  you  with  your  disobe- 
dience are  setting  yourself  against  His  love.  You 
must  turn  round.  You  must  be  converted.  And  then, 
when  your  will  is  by  obedience  confederate  with  the 
will  of  God,  every  breath  of  His  presence  shall  be 
your  joy  and  salvation. 

If  there  were  not  some  such  law  as  this  discern- 
ible, how  terrible  life  would  be !  If  man  went  on, 
and  whether  he  were  good  or  bad,  whether  he  obeyed 
or  disobeyed,  there  came  no  change  in  God's  attitude 
to  him,  only  one  long,  weak,  undiscriminating  indul- 
gence, where  would  be  any  limit  to  the  depth  of 
wickedness  into  which  man  might  fall?  What  a  moral 
chaos  everywhere !     You  tremble  when  you  think  of 


314      An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord. 

all  that  happening  in  your  own  family.  We  cannot 
picture  to  ourselves  how  dreadful  it  would  be  in  the 
great  family  of  God. 

My  friends,  my  mission  is — and  more  and  more  do 
I  delight  in  it — to  preach  to  you  the  love  of  God. 
I  have  preached  that  love  to  you  to-day.  But  I  have 
spoken  to  you,  not  as  if  you  were  sick  children  who 
must  hear  nothing  but  the  tenderest  words,  but  as  if 
you  were  reasonable,  responsible  men  and  women, 
who  want  to  face  the  facts  of  life,  and  who  know  that 
the  truth  is  best.  I  have  tried  to  show  you  out  of  the 
story  of  the  old  Hebrew  King,  that  however  God  has 
chosen  a  soul,  and  given  it  great  tasks,  and  surround- 
ed it  with  privileges,  and  apparently  made  it  neces- 
sary to  His  designs,  He  will  not,  cannot  keep  that 
soul,  if  it  is  disobedient.  He  must  let  it  go  its  way 
and  take  another  for  His  work.  There  is  no  privi- 
lege which  we  may  not  turn  into  a  curse.  God  does 
love  you,  and  never  will  cease  to  love  you,  no  matter 
where  you  go,  no  matter  what  you  are,  no  matter 
through  what  depths  of  vice  your  soul  may  plunge 
in  any  world  whose  possibilities  we  cannot  guess ; 
but  His  love  shall  be  to  you  a  spirit  of  help  or  a  spirit 
of  harm,  according  to  your  obedience  or  disobedience 
to  Him. 

This  is  the  truth  to  preach  to  men  and  women  who 
are  in  the  midst  of  the  reality  and  the  solemnity  of 
life.  It  is  strong,  manly  doctrine.  The  Bible  rings 
with  it.  All  powerful  and  vital  Christianity  is  full 
of  it.     It  is  not  hard  and  cruel.     It  is  not  weak  and 


An  Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord.       315 

sentimental.  I  beg  you  to  take  this  truth.  Let  it 
fill  your  life.  Let  it  make  you  serious,  brave, 
thoughtful,  hopeful  and  fearful  both.  Let  it  make  you 
men  of  God,  living  in  His  service,  rejoicing  in  His 
love,  and  feeling  already  in  your  obedient  souls  the 
power  of  His  everlasting  life. 


SERMON  XVIII. 

$0ittfl  up  to  ^txumlm. 

"Then  Jesus  took  unto  him  the  twelve,  and  said  unto  them,  Behold, 
we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  all  things  that  are  written  concerning 
the  Son  of  man  shall  he  accomplished." — Luke  xviii.  30. 

EVERY  true  life  has  its  Jerusalem,  to  which  it 
is  always  going  up.  A  life  cannot  be  really 
considered  as  having  begun  to  live  until  that  far-off 
city  in  which  its  destiny  awaits  it,  where  its  work  is 
to  be  done,  where  its  problem  is  to  be  solved,  begins 
to  draw  the  life  towards  itself,  and  the  life  begins  to 
know  and  own  the  summons.  Very  strange  is  this 
quality  of  our  human  nature  which  decrees  that 
unless  we  feel  a  future  before  us  we  do  not  live  com- 
pletely in  the  present  where  we  stand  to-day.  We 
have  grown  so  used  to  it  that  we  do  not  realize  how 
strange  it  is.  It  seems  to  us  to  be  necessary.  But 
the  lower  natures,  the  beasts,  do  not  seem  to  have 
anything  like  it.  And  we  can  easily  picture  to 
ourselves  a  human  nature  which  might  have  been 
created  so  that  it  never  should  think  about  the 
future,  but  should  get  all  its  inspiration  out  of  pre- 
sent things.     But  that  is  not  our  human  nature.     It 

316 


Going  up  to  Jerusalem.  317 

always  must  look  forward.  The  thing  which  it 
hopes  to  become  is  already  a  power  and  decides  the 
thing  it  is. 

And  so  every  true  life  has  its  Jerusalem  to  which 
it  is  always  going  up.  At  first  far  off  and  dimly 
seen,  laying  but  light  hold  upon  our  purpose  and 
our  will,  then  gradually  taking  us  more  and  more 
into  its  power,  compelling  our  study,  directing  the 
current  of  our  thoughts,  arranging  our  friendships 
for  us,  deciding  for  us  what  powers  we  shall  bring 
out  into  use,  deciding  for  us  what  we  shall  be :  so 
every  live  man's  Jerusalem,  his  sacred  city,  calls 
to  him  from  the  hill-top  where  it  stands.  One 
man's  Jerusalem  is  his  profession.  Another  man's 
Jerusalem  is  his  fortune.  Another  man's  Jerusa- 
lem is  his  cause.  Another  man's  Jerusalem  is  his 
faith.  Another  man's  Jerusalem  is  his  character. 
Another  man's  Jerusalem  is  his  image  of  purified 
society  and  a  worthy  human  life.  You  stop  the 
student  at  his  books,  the  philanthropist  at  his  com- 
mittee, the  saint  at  his  prayers.  You  say  to  each  of 
them,  "  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  What  are  you 
doing  ?  What  is  it  all  for  ?  "  And  the  answer  is 
everywhere  the  same:  "Behold  we  go  up  to  Jeru- 
salem." We  draw  back  the  vail  of  history,  and 
everywhere  it  is  the  same  picture  that  we  see.  Com- 
panies, great  and  small,  climbing  mountains  to 
where  sacred  cities  stand  awaiting  them  with  open 
gates  upon  the  top.  The  man  who  is  going  up  to 
no  Jerusalem  is  but  the  ghost  and  relic  of  a  man. 
He  has  in  him  no  genuine  and  healthy  human  life. 


3 1 8  Going  tip  to  Jerusalem. 

There  never  was  an  exhibition  of  all  this  so  fine 
and   perfect  as  that   which  we  see   in  Jesus.     His 
manhood  shines  out  nowhere  so  clear  and  strong  as 
here.     Think  how  his  life  gets  its  glory  and  beauty 
from  the  way  in  which  it  is  always,  from  the  very 
first,  tending  on  to  the  thing  which  it  was  at  last  to 
reach.     That   tendency   began  at  his  birth,  and   it 
never  ceased  until  he  was  hanging  on  the  cross  out- 
side the  city  gate.     Then  he  had  come  to  Jerusalem 
and  it  was  finished.     The  angels  sang  about  Jerusa- 
lem   when   the  shepherds  heard   them.     The   boy's 
thoughts  were  full  of  Jerusalem  as  he  worked  in  the 
carpenter's   shop.     Egypt,  where   they   carried   the 
babe  to  get  him  out  of  danger  was  on  the  way  to 
Jerusalem,  where  he  was  finally  to  be  killed.     The 
visit  to  the  temple  when  he  was  twelve  years  old, 
was  a  nearer  glimpse  of  the  Jerusalem  to  which  he 
did  not  then  really  come,  though  his  feet  trod  its 
streets,  but  which  he  then  accepted  as  the  only  suf- 
ficent  issue  of  his  life.     He  was  baptized  in  consecra- 
tion to  the  life-long  journey  to  Jerusalem.     "  For  this 
cause  was  I  born.     For  this  cause  came  I  into  the 
world."     "  My  time  is  not  yet  come."     Those  words, 
and  words  like  those,  dropped  here  and  there,  along 
his  path,  are  like  foot-prints  in  the  road  he  walked, 
all  pointing  to  Jerusalem.     At  last  he  came  there, 
and  in  the  tragedy  of  Good  Friday  he  laid  down  his 
life.    He  had  reached  Jerusalem  at  last.    The  most  in- 
tense, persistent  purpose  that  the  world  had  ever  seen, 
had  reached  its  completion.      He  had  come  to  the 
Jerusalem  of  his  intention,  and  mankind  was  saved. 


Going  up  to  Jerusalem.  319 


With  Christ  as  the  great  image  and  pattern  of  it 
all  before  us,  let  us  speak  this  morning  of  the  Jeru- 
salem of  every  life,  the  steady  tendency  of  every  life 
to  come  to  some  appointed  result  of  which  it  is  grow- 
ingly  conscious  as  it  moves  upon  its  way  towards  it. 
Let  lis  speak  first  of  the  existence  of  such  a  result, 
and  then  of  the  struggle  by  which  it  is  reached. 

First,  then,  may  we  not  say  that  the  appointed  re- 
sult of  any  man's  life  will  consist  of  his  character 
multiplied  by  his  circumstances.  Find  the  product 
of  that  multiplication,  and  you  can  surely  tell  what 
the  man  will  attain.  It  is  because  both  of  these 
terms  are  vague ;  because,  look  as  deep  into  him  as 
you  will,  you  cannot  read  his  character  perfectly; 
and  because,  study  his  circumstances  as  carefully  as 
you  may,  you  cannot  tell  just  what  is  going  to  hap- 
pen ;  for  these  two  causes,  the  final  issue  of  his  life  is 
not  entirely  clear;  the  Jerusalem  to  which  he  is 
travelling,  is  vague  and  cloudlike.  And  yet  it  is 
good,  indeed  it  is  necessary,  for  us  to  know  that  both 
of  these  elements  do  enter  into  the  decision  of  a 
man's  life,  and  that  neither  of  them  must  be  left  out. 
You  leave  out  a  man's  character,  and  think  that  his 
circumstances  only  must  control  his  destiny,  and  at 
once  you  are  a  fatalist.  On  the  other  hand  you  leave 
out  his  circumstances,  and  think  only  of  his  charac- 
ter, and  you  have  set  a  premium  on  wilfulness.  At 
once  men  go  about  complaining  that  the  circum- 
stances, which  they  did  not  take  into  account,  are 
hindering  them  from  being  what  they  have  found  it, 
they  think,  in  their  characters  to  be ! 


320  Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 

But  see  !  here  is  a  man  who  has  heard  the  doctrine 
which  I  have  preached  thus  far  in  this  sermon.  He 
wants  to  apply  that  doctrine  to  himself.  "  Where  is 
my  Jerusalem  ?  "  he  says.  "  What  is  there  to  which 
my  life  is  moving?  What  is  there  which  I  must 
hope  ultimately  to  attain  ?"  That  man,  I  say,  must 
multiply  his  character  by  his  circumstances  and  see 
what  the  product  is.  He  finds  himself  by  character 
a  scholar,  and  by  circumstances  a  citizen  of  America 
in  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ.  Those  two 
things  he  must  put  together.  As  the  result,  a  cer- 
tain image  of  scholarship,  humane,  practical,  broad, 
hopeful,  distinctly  modern,  distinctly  different  from 
mediaeval  scholarship,  burns  before  him  on  the  hill. 
On  that  his  eye  must  be  fastened.  To  that  his  feet 
must  struggle. 

Or  he  might  have  found  himself  a  man  with  a 
soldier's  heart  in  the  third  century,  or  with  a  saint's 
heart  in  the  first  century,  or  with  a  discoverer's  dis- 
position in  the  fifteenth  century.  The  time  and  the 
man  together  decree  the  possible  career. 

Or,  if  you  talk  of  it  within  a  narrower  range ;  here 
in  town  there  is  a  man  poor  and  full  of  enterprise ; 
there  is  a  rich  man  all  alive  with  sympathy;  there 
is  a  quiet,  meditative  soul,  pushed  on  by  the  accidents 
of  its  existence  into  perpetual  contact  with  fellow- 
men;  there  is  a  brilliant  flashing  genius  doomed  to 
solitude.  In  either  case  it  is  the  condition  and  the 
man,  it  is  the  circumstances  and  the  character  mul- 
tiplied into  each  other  which  make  the  life.  The 
circumstances   are  the  brick  and   mortar;  the  cha- 


Going  up  to  Jerusalem.  321 

racter  is  like  the  architect's  design;  out  of  the  two 
Jerusalem  is  built. 

He  then  who  would  know  his  Jerusalem  must 
know  both  of  these  elements.  He  must  know  him- 
self and  he  must  know  his  conditions.  See  how  at 
once  the  full  activity  of  man  is  called  for.  You  can- 
not simply  look  at  what  other  men  are  doing  and 
see  in  their  activity  the  disposition  of  your  time 
and  fling  yourself  out  into  their  forms  of  action,  re- 
gardless of  the  fitnesses  and  the  limitations  which 
are  in  your  own  nature.  On  the  other  hand  you 
cannot  just  study  yourself  and  then  demand  that 
the  age  and  the  place  in  which  you  find  yourself 
shall  take  you  and  find  use  for  you,  however  you 
may  be  out  of  harmony  with  its  disposition  and  its 
needs.  From  both  of  those  causes  there  have  come 
great  failures.  Who  are  the  men  who  have  suc- 
ceeded in  the  best  way?  Who  are  the  men  who 
have  done  good  work  while  they  lived,  and  have  left 
their  lives  like  monuments  for  the  inspiration  of 
mankind?  They  are  the  men  who  have  at  once 
known  themselves  in  reference  to  their  circumstan- 
ces, and  known  their  circumstances  in  reference  to 
themselves ;  true  men,  sure  of  their  own  individual- 
ity, sure  of  their  own  distinctness  and  difference 
from  every  other  human  life,  sure  that  there  was  nev- 
er another  man  just  like  them  since  the  world  be- 
gan, that  therefore  they  had  their  own  duties,  their 
own  rights,  their  own  work  to  do,  and  way  to  do  it ; 
but  men  also  who  questioned  the  circumstances  in 

which  they  found  themselves  and  asked  what  was 
21 


322  Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 

the  best  thing  which  any  man  in  just  those  circum- 
stances might  set  himself  to  do  ?  These  are  the 
men  before  whom  there  rises  by-and-by  a  dream, 
which  later  gathers  itself  into  a  hope,  and  at  last 
solidifies  into  an  achievement.  It  is  something 
which  only  they  can  do,  because  of  their  distinctness 
and  uniqueness.  It  is  something  which  even  they 
could  not  do  in  any  other  circumstances  than  just 
these  in  which  they  do  it  now.  Columbus  discovers 
America  because  he  is  Columbus,  and  because  the 
study  of  geography  and  the  enterprise  of  man  have 
reached  to  just  this  point.  Luther  kindles  the  Kef- 
ormation  because  he  is  Luther,  and  because  the  dry 
wood  of  the  papacy  has  come  to  just  the  right  in- 
flammability. You  and  I,  who  are  not  Luthers  nor 
Columbuses,  but  simply,  by  the  grace  of  God,  earnest, 
true-hearted  men,  conceive  some  purpose  for  our 
lives  and  keep  it  clear  before  us,  praying  we  may 
not  die  before  we  do  it;  and  at  last  doing  it  before 
we  die,  because  we  are  we,  and  because  the  world  in 
which  we  live  is  just  the  world  it  is.  It  is  every 
young  man's  place  to  realize,  to  make  real  to  him- 
self, both  himself  and  his  circumstances,  what  he 
is  and  where  he  is.  Are  the  young  men  here  doing 
that?  If  they  are  not,  their  lives  are  stagnant  or 
drifting,  and  who  knows  which  of  these  two  is 
worse  ?  But  if  they  are,  then  there  is  certainly  shap- 
ing itself  in  the  misty  future  a  purpose  of  their 
life  which  slowly  will  grow  clear  to  them,  which 
they  will  pursue  with  ever  deeper  joy  and  ardor, 
which  they  will  humbly  rejoice  in  when  they  come 


Going  up  to  Jcrtisalem. 


to  die,  and  which  men  will  thank  God  for,  long  after 
they  are  dead ! 

"  But  how  shall  I  realize  myself  and  my  circum- 
stances ?"  some  one  says.  I  wish  that  I  could  make 
you  see  it  as  clearly  as  it  seems  to  me.  The  answer 
is  that  you  must  realize  them  both  in  God.  Jerusa- 
lem, as  we  go  up  to  it,  shines  through  its  atmosphere 
to  us.  We  see  it  through  and  because  of  the  vital 
air  which  is  poured  around  both  it  and  us.  Now 
God  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  we  "  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being."  He  made  our  characters,  and 
He  made  our  circumstances,  and  it  is  His  hand  that 
moulds  the  two  together  and  bids  arise  into  exist- 
ence out  of  them  a  definite,  appropriate  purpose  for 
our  life,  a  thing  for  us  to  be  and  do. 

Here  are  you,  let  us  say,  who  have  seriously  decided 
that  you  will  be  a  lawyer  in  this  city  and  this  time. 
If  you  have  come  to  that  decision  seriously  and 
intelligently,  and  not  by  mere  whim,  you  have  reach- 
ed it  by  a  knowledge  of  your  character  and  your 
circumstances,  as  I  tried  to  describe.  You  have  rec- 
ognized certain  powers  in  yourself,  and  certain  needs 
in  the  community.  Tell  me,  will  it  not  make  both 
of  those  recognitions  clearer  if  behind  them  both  you 
put  the  thought,  the  certainty,  of  God  ?  If  you  are 
able  to  think  of  One  who  made  you  for  your  time, 
and  made  your  time  for  you;  if  you  are  able  to  see, 
with  the  eye  of  faith,  as  we  say,  the  eye  which  sees 
the  unseen — if  you  are  able  to  see  the  divine  wisdom 
and  foresight  standing  with  your  nature  in  its 
hands,    and   saying,    "  This  nature   will  need  such 


324  Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 

and  such  chances,"  and  so  making  for  it  this  Bos- 
ton and  this  profession  of  the  law,  and  also  see 
that  same  wisdom  and  foresight  standing  with  this 
Boston  and  this  legal  profession  in  its  sight,  and  say- 
ing, "  They  will  need  such  and  such  a  man,"  and  so 
making  you.  "  Ah,"  you  say,  in  your  mock  humility, 
"  I  cannot  really  think  that  I  am  of  as  much  conse- 
quence as  that."  "Ah,"  you  say,  in  your  crude  inde- 
pendence, "  I  will  not  let  any  power  choose  and 
appoint  my  life  for  me.  I  will  do  it  for  myself." 
Let  the  two  outbursts  modify  and  rectify  each  other. 
Let  your  humility  make  you  rejoice  that  God  has  ap- 
pointed for  you  the  Jerusalem  up  to  which  the  whole 
journey  of  your  life  must  climb.  Let  your  instinct  of 
independence,  your  instinct  of  personal  life,  give  you 
assurance  that  God  cannot  have  chosen  your  Jerusa- 
lem for  you  so  absolutely  that  it  will  not  rest  with 
you  to  find  the  way  to  it  through  every  bewilder- 
ment, and  to  keep  it  continually  in  your  sight. 

All  this  is  illustrated  in  the  life  of  him  to  whom 
the  picture  of  our  text  belongs.  The  life  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  full  of  this  atmosphere  of  God.  He  calls 
Himself,  "Him  whom  the  Father  hath  sanctified  and 
sent  into  the  world."  What  does  that  mean  but 
just  what  I  have  been  saying  ?  God  made  the  world 
and  He  sent  Jesus.  The  world  needed  Jesus  the 
Saviour,  and  Jesus  the  Saviour  bore  in  His  myste- 
rious nature  the  power  to  save  the  world.  The  two 
met  and  there  was  Jerusalem,  the  sacred  city,  the 
city  where  the  sacrifices  had  smoked  in  prophecy  for 
years;   the  city  where  Herod  and  Pilate  tarried  for 


Going  tip  to  Jerusalem.  325 

their  victim ;  the  city  where  the  judgment-seat,  the 
condemnation,  the  cross,  the  resurrection  morning 
were  waiting.  As  Jesus  goes  up  to  that  Jerusalem, 
He  goes  because  He  is  He,  and  Jerusalem  is  Jerusa- 
lem, and  because  both  are  themselves  in  God ;  because 
the  Father  hath  sanctified  him  and  sent  him  into 
the  world.  When  he  came  there  and  the  cross  seized 
and  held  him,  character  and  circumstances  had  per- 
fectly met  in  their  complete  result.  The  Saviour- 
hood  and  the  world's  need  of  being  saved  had  come 
together,  and  here  was  salvation. 

Would  it  not  be  a  vast  thing  for  us  if  we  could  be 
far  more  aware  than  we  are  now  of  some  such  great 
Christlike  sweep  of  our  lives  towards  a  purpose? 
The  truth  which  Jesus  first  manifested  in  his  living, 
and  then  taught  in  his  doctrine,  the  truth  that  man  is 
the  child  of  God,  is  pregnant  with  that  consciousness. 
Whenever  any  man  has  learned  it  he  grows  strong 
and  eager.  He  no  longer  loiters  and  plays.  A  friend 
comes  to  you  and  says,  "Do  this  with  me  !  "  And 
you  quietly  reply  to  him,  "  I  cannot; "  and  he  answers 
you,  "Why  not?"  And  you  say,  "  I  am  going  up 
to  Jerusalem."  There  is  an  end  of  it.  You  have  not 
to  sit  on  a  stone  at  the  road  side,  undetermined,  until 
every  speculative  question  has  been  settled,  until 
you  have  decided  just  whether  the  thing  is  wrong, 
and  just  how  wrong  it  is,  and  just  how  bad  it  is  for 
this  other  man  to  do  it,  and  just  how  near  a  thing  to 
it  you  may  allow  yourself  to  do.  Simply  the  thing 
is  not  on  the  way  to  your  Jerusalem,  and  so  you 
press  on  past  it  and  leave  it  far  behind.     Ah,  how 


2,26  Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 

men  spend  their  time  in  debating  just  how  wrong 
things  are,  which,  whether  they  be  more  or  less 
wrong,  these  men  know  that  it  is  not  for  them 
to  do.  It  is  as  if  a  traveller  in  a  great  highway 
refused  to  pass  by  the  opening  of  any  side  lane  until 
he  knew  just  how  deep  was  the  bog  or  the  wilderness 
into  which  the  lane  would  lead  him  if  he  followed 
it,  which  he  has  no  idea  of  doing.  The  power  of  an 
apprehended  purpose  saves  us  from  all  that.  The 
hope  of  our  Jerusalem  draws  us  on,  and  will  not  let 
us  stop. 

And,  to  come  to  the  second  part  of  what  I  want 
to  say,  this  power  of  our  purpose,  this  attraction  of 
Jerusalem,  is  not  destroyed,  nay,  is  not  weakened, 
nay,  is  intensified  and  strengthened,  when  the  vail  is 
lifted,  and  it  is  distinctly  shown  to  us  that  our  pur- 
pose can  be  attained  only  by  struggle  and  self-sacri- 
fice and  pain.  This  surely  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting things  in  all  our  study  of  mankind.  I  see  a 
man  who  has  caught  sight  of  how  his  character  and 
his  circumstances  unite  to  designate  for  him  a  cer- 
tain work  and  destiny.  He  is  inspired  by  the  vision. 
He  has  set  out  with  all  his  soul  to  realize  it.  I  can 
see  lions  in  the  way  which  he  cannot  see.  I  dread 
to  tell  him  of  the  deserts  he  must  cross,  the  fires 
through  which  he  must  force  his  way  before  He  can 
go  into  that  open  gate,  and  be  what  he  has  made  up 
his  mind  to  be.  At  last  I  feel  myself  compelled  to  tell 
him,  and  I  do  tell  him  with  a  trembling  heart.  I  look 
to  see  him  falter  and  sink  down,  or  else  turn  and  run. 
Instead  of  that  I  see  his  eye  kindle ;  his  whole  face 


Going  tip  to  Jerusalem.  327 

glows;  his  frame  stiffens  with  intense  resolution, 
and  I  see  him  a  thousand  times  more  eager  than 
before  to  do  this  thing  which  he  has  recognized  as 
his.  Listen  to  Jesus  as  he  says  the  words  following 
our  text :  "  Behold  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  all 
things  which  are  written  concerning  the  Son  of  man 
shall  be  accomplished.  For  he  shall  be  delivered 
unto  the  Gentiles,  and  shall  be  mocked  and  spitefully- 
entreated  and  spitted  on,  and  they  shall  scourge  him 
and  put  him  to  death."  What  a  catalogue  of  miseries ! 
How  clear  and  how  certain  they  evidently  are,  as 
we  hear  through  the  ages  that  calm  voice  rehearsing 
them,  while  the  Lord  and  the  disciples  walk  along 
the  road.  But  tell  me,  as  we  hear  that  voice  through 
the  ages,  is  there  any  faltering  in  it  because  of  these 
miseries  which  it  foretells  ?  Are  you  not  sure  that 
the  steadfast  feet  go  pressing  on  all  the  more  stead- 
fastly as  they  keep  time  to  the  tragical  catalogue 
which  the  calm  lips  are  telling  ?  0  this  is  a  won- 
derful power  in  man,  this  power  which  shines  out 
supremely  in  the  Man  of  men,  this  power  to  be 
inspired  by  danger,  and  to  desire  a  good  and  great 
thing  all  the  more  because  of  the  deserts  and  the 
fire  and  the  death  which  must  be  gone  through  for 
its  attainment ! 

We  hear  it  said  sometimes  that  it  was  wonderful  that 
Jesus,  having  undertaken  the  world's  salvation,  did 
not  draw  back  at  the  sight  of  the  cross.  Would  it  not 
have  been  wonderful  if,  being  Jesus,  he  had  drawn 
back  and  refused  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  because  of 
what  was  waiting  for  him  there  ?     Can  we  imagine 


328  Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 

that  ?  Would  we  not  have  said  at  once,  "  No,  he 
is  not  the  Christ  I  thought  he  was — or  else  the 
cross  with  all  its  terrors  never  could  have  frightened 
Him." 

I  think  the  same  is  true  of  all  devoted  souls — of 
all  souls  who  have  really  seen  their  Jerusalem  and  set 
their  faces  towards  it.  I  do  not  expect  them — they 
ought  not  to  expect  themselves — to  be  turned  back 
by  the  difficulties  and  terrors  which  stand  in  the 
way.  The  wonders  of  life  are  not  in  deeds,  but  in 
characters.  Given  the  character,  the  deed  does  not 
surprise  me.  Let  me  look  into  the  martyr's  soul  and 
see  the  perfect  consecration  which  is  burning  there, 
and  then  there  is  no  wonder  in  my  spirit  when  I  see 
him  walking  next  day  to  the  stake  as  to  a  festival. 
The  wonder  would  be  if  I  saw  him  turn  and  run 
away.  Let  me  thoroughly  understand  how  the 
humble  missionary  loves  his  Master  and  thinks  that 
Master's  service  the  one  precious  thing  on  earth,  and 
then  I  can  perfectly  comprehend  why  he  turns  his 
ship's  prow  all  the  more  steadfastly  shoreward  when 
the  savages  come  howling  down  to  the  beach  to  seek 
his  blood.  The  wonder  is  that  they  should  be  the 
men  they  are.  When  they  once  are  the  men  they 
are,  the  things  that  they  do  are  not  wonderful. 

No  deed  is  wonderful  except  in  relation  to  the 
strength  which  does  it.  It  would  be  wonderful  that 
a  robin  should  swim,  but  it  is  not  wonderful  that 
a  fish  should  swim.  It  would  be  wonderful  if  you 
or  I  should  write  a  Hamlet.  It  was  not  wonderful 
that    Shakespeare    should    do   it.     The    wonder   is 


Going  up  to  Jerusalem.  329 

that  he  should  be  Shakespeare;  but,  he  being 
Shakespeare,  Hamlet  is  no  miracle.  It  would  be 
unspeakably  wonderful  if  any  man  should  stand 
upon  the  mountain  top  and  bid  the  morning  rise  out 
of  the  sea.  But  God  does  it  day  by  day,  and  we  are 
not  astonished.  Granted  God,  and  what  deed  of  God 
is  marvellous  ?  God  is  so  marvellous  that  He  ex- 
hausts all  marvel  in  Himself.  God  is  the  one  only 
wonder  of  the  universe.  With  Him  in  the  universe, 
the  most  stupendous  prodigies  are  natural. 

What  does  this  mean  for  us  ?  What  is  its  bearing 
on  our  lives?  Something  very  direct  and  definite,  I 
think.  If  you  are  going  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  as  you 
go  you  become  aware  that  you  can  only  reach  your 
Jerusalem,  your  purpose,  through  suffering,  perhaps 
through  death.  What  then  ?  Where  shall  you  look 
for  your  release,  and  the  solution  of  your  fear  ?  Shall 
you  expect  it  in  the  change  of  circumstances,  in  the 
muzzling  o  the  lions  so  that  they  shall  not  bite  you, 
in  the  palsying  of  death  so  that  it  shall  not  kill  you  ? 
No  !  you  must  seek  it  in  the  strengthening  of  your 
own  life,  so  that  it  shall  be  nothing  strange  for  you, 
being  the  man  you  are,  to  scorn  the  lions  and  to 
laugh  at  death. 

Men  watch  you.  They  say,  Is  it  possible  that  he 
will  not  be  frightened,  but  will  go  on  to  his  ap- 
pointed end  through  everything?  You,  knowing 
your  own  heart,  are  sure  that  you  will  not  be  fright- 
ened, sure  that  you  will  indeed  go  on.  Some  friend 
who  really  knows  you,  quietly  says,  "  Yes,  he  will 
conquer,"  and  evidently  thinks  it  nothing  strange. 


330  Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 

It  is  no  gift  of  prophecy  in  him.  It  is  simply  that  he 
does  know  you,  and  knowing  your  strength,  the  trial 
that  awaits  it  does  not  seem  too  great. 

0,  do  not  pray  for  easy  lives.  Pray  to  be  stronger 
men  !  Do  not  pray  for  tasks  equal  to  your  powers. 
Pray  for  powers  equal  to  your  tasks !  Then  the  do- 
ing of  your  work  shall  be  no  miracle.  But  you  shall 
be  a  miracle.  Every  day  you  shall  wonder  at  your- 
self, at  the  richness  of  life  which  has  come  in  you 
by  the  grace  of  God. 

There  is  nothing  which  comes  to  seem  more  foolish 
to  us,  I  think,  as  years  go  by,  than  the  limitations 
which  have  been  quietly  set  to  the  moral  possibili- 
ties of  man.  They  are  placedly  and  perpetually  as- 
sumed. "  You  must  not  expect  too  much  of  him," 
so  it  is  said.  "You  must  remember  that  he  is  only  a 
man,  after  all."  "Only  a  man  !"  That  sounds  to  me 
as  if  one  said,  "  You  may  launch  your  boat  and  sail 
a  little  way,  but  you  must  not  expect  to  go  very  far. 
It  is  only  the  Atlantic  Ocean."  Why  man's  moral 
range  and  reach  is  practically  infinite,  at  least  no 
man  has  yet  begun  to  comprehend  where  its  limits 
lies.  Man's  powers  of  conquering  temptation,  of 
despising  danger,  of  being  true  to  principle,  have 
never  been  even  indicated,  save  in  Christ.  "  Only  a 
man  !  "  that  means  only  a  Son  of  God;  and  who  can 
begin  to  say  what  a  Son  of  God,  claiming  his  Father, 
may  become  and  be  and  do  ? 

Therefore  the  fact  that  with  our  purpose  clear  be- 
fore us,  with  something  which  we  believe  that  it  is 
our  place  to  accomplish  in  the  world,  there  still  are 


Going  up  to  Jerusalem.  331 


fears  and  pains  and  difficulties  in  the  way,  that  fact 
may  not  have  any  power  except  a  power  of  inspira- 
tion. You  tell  the  mother  that  her  child  is  in  dan- 
ger, and  that  she  cannot  save  it  except  by  vast  self- 
sacrifice,  and  the  question  never  arises  for  an  instant 
whether  the  sacrifice  shall  be  undertaken  and  the 
child  saved.  The  whole  power  of  the  tidings  is 
just  to  summon  a  deeper  flood  of  that  self-sacrifice 
which  is  the  very  essence  of  her  motherhood,  and 
which  laughs  at  danger  with  a  quiet  scorn. 

So  may  it  be  with  you !     I  look  across  this  con- 
gregation and  I  know  that  to  many  of  these  young 
eyes   some  Jerusalem  has   shown   itself,  some  pur- 
pose far  away  upon  its  hill.     You  have  multiplied 
your  character  into  your   circumstances   and   seen 
what   you   ought  to  do  with  your  life.     I  bid  you 
know  it   is   not  easy   to   attain  your  hope.     I  bid 
you  clearly  know  that  if  the  life  which  you  have 
chosen   to   be   your   life   is  really   worthy  of  you, 
it  involves  self-sacrifice  and  pain.     If  your  Jerusa- 
lem really  is  your  sacred  city,  there  is  certainly  a 
cross  in  it.    What  then  ?    Shall  you  flinch  and  draw 
back  ?     Shall  you  ask  for  yourself  another  life  ?     0 
no,  not  another  life,  but  another  self.     Ask  to  be 
born  again.     Ask  God  to  fill  you  with  Himself,  and 
then  calmly  look  up  and  go  on.     Go  up  to  Jerusa- 
lem expecting  all  things  that  are  written  concern- 
ing you  to  be  fulfilled.     Disappointment,  mortifica- 
tion, misconception,  enmity,  pain,  death,  these  may 
come  to  you,  but  if  they  come  to  you  in  doing  your 
duty  it  is  all  right.     "  It  cannot  be  that  a  prophet 


332  Going  up  to  Jerusalem. 


perish  out  of  Jerusalem,"  said  Jesus.  "It  is  dread- 
ful to  suffer  except  in  doing  duty.  To  suffer  there  is 
glorious."  That  is  our  translation  of  his  words  into 
our  own  life. 

May  God  let  us  all  first  see  our  Jerusalem  and 
then  attain  it.  What  is  that  prayer  but  the  great 
prayer  of  our  Collect  in  the  Prayer  Book — that  by 
his  holy  inspiration  we  may  think  those  things 
that  are  good,  and  by  his  merciful  guiding  may  per- 
form the  same,  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Amen. 


SERMON  XIX. 

%\a  Mtty  and  f$t\\tfnlnm  Qi  Jaitft. 

"They  shall  take  up  serpents,  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing  it 
shall  not  harm  them.  They  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick  arid  they 
shall  recover." — Mark  xvi.  18. 

THESE  are  the  last  words  that  Jesus  spoke  on 
earth.  The  next  verse  says,  "  So  then  after  the 
Lord  had  spoken  unto  them,  he  was  received  up 
into  heaven,  and  sat  on  the  right  hand  of  God." 
The  cloud  which  hid  their  Master  from  the  disciples' 
sight  left  these  words  of  promise  still  ringing  in 
their  ears.  "  These  signs  shall  follow  them  that 
believe,"  he  said.  And  those  who  knew  that  they 
believed  in  him  must  have  turned  and  gone  back 
from  the  scene  of  the  ascension,  with  eyes  full  of 
'the  expectation  of  miracle.  By-and-by  they  began 
to  see  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises.  When  Peter 
and  John  went  through  the  Beautiful  Gate  into  the 
Temple,  and  looking  upon  the  lame  man  bade  him, 
"  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  rise  up 
and  walk,"  and  "  he  leaping  up  stood  and  walked," 
the  disciples  who  stood  by  must  have  looked  into 

one  another's  faces  and  said,  •'  Yes,  this  is  what  the 

333 


334     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith. 

Master  promised."     When  Paul  at  Melita  shook  off 
the  viper  into  the  fire  and  felt  no  hurt,  the  words  of 
the  Lord  must  have  come  back  to  them,  and  they 
must   have   said,    "  Behold  still  the  signs  that  He 
foretold  should  follow  them  that  believe."     And  no 
doubt  they  were  right.     Christ's  farewell  words  did 
find  such  fulfilment  for  a  time.     But  by-and-by  there 
came  a  change.     Those  miracles  became  more  and 
more  rare.     Men  still  believed,  but  their  belief  gave 
them   less    and   less   power    over   material    nature. 
Perhaps  then  the  disciples  grew  bewildered  and  per- 
plexed.   Can  it  be  that  the  power  of  Christ's  promise 
is  exhausted  ?     Had  his  gift  a  limit  so  that  it  has  lost 
its  virtue  ?   But  as  they  asked  that  question,  gradually 
they  must  have  become  aware  of  a  more  profound 
fulfilment  of  the  promise.     No  longer  over  outer  and 
material  things,  but  now  over  the  inner  and  spirit- 
ual life,  the  power  of  faith  began  to  show  itself.     No 
longer  over  the  danger  of  the  serpents  which  the  hands 
could  handle,  or  of  the  sicknesses  which  flushed  the 
cheek  with  fever  or  crippled  the  tortured  limbs,  did 
their  belief  prove  itself  mighty.     The  serpents  of  the 
soul,  the   sicknesses   of  the  heart  and   mind,  they 
learned   to   see   that   these   were    more    dgtoigerous 
enemies,  and  that  their  faith  came  to  its  supreme 
test    when   it  grappled  with  and  tried  to  conquer 
these.     This   conviction   grew   with  the  deepening 
spiritual  life  of  Christianity,  until  at  last  the  words 
changed  their  tone,  and  now  it  is  a  promise  of  spirit- 
ual victory  over  spiritual   difficulties,  when  the  dis- 
ciple hears  his  Lord  declare,    "  You  shall  take  up 


The  Safety  a?id  Helpfulness  of  Faith.     335 

serpents,  and  if  you  touch  any  deadly  thing  it  shall 
not  harm  you.  You  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick 
and  they  shall  recover." 

It  is  in  this  fullest  sense  of  course  that  I  want  to 
study  the  great  eternal  promise  of  Christ  with  you 
this  morning.  It  is  as  bright  to-day  as  it  was  on 
that  fresh  morning  when  our  Lord  passed  into  the 
cloud  which  still  hides  him  from  our  sight.  Nay,  it 
is  brighter.  The  sun  that  goes  behind  a  cloud  al- 
ways diffuses  its  light  over  the  heavens  not  instantly 
at  its  first  disappearance,  but  not  till  'some  few  mo- 
ments after  the  cloud  has  hidden  it,  and  when  the 
cloud  itself  helps  to  diffuse  the  light  of  the  sun  which 
it  has  hidden.  So  when  Christ  became  unseen,  the 
world  only  gradually  learned  the  richness  and  com- 
pleteness of  his  unseen  presence.  And  so  we  are 
studying  not  something  whose  glory  is  outworn,  but 
something  whose  light  is  growing  brighter  in  the 
world  continually,  when  we  study  the  promise  of  the 
ascending  Christ. 

The  promise  then  is  this :  that  the  believer  shall 
drink  poison  and  it  shall  not  harm  him,  and  that  life 
shall  go  out  of  him  to  cure  the  sick.  And  first  of  all 
we  must  notice  what  is  the  cause  of  privileges  such 
as  these.  Then  we  shall  better  understand  the  full 
nature  of  the  privileges.  These  signs  are  to  follow 
"them  that  believe."  It  is  to  men  who  believe, 
through  their  belief,  that  privileges  such  as  these 
are  to  be  given.  The  essence  and  ground  of  the  pro- 
mised power  is  faith.  That  old  word,  Faith  !  That 
old  thing,  Faith  !     How  men  have  stumbled  over  its 


33  6     The  Safety  and  Helpfttlness  of  Faith. 

definition  and  bewildered  and  en  snarled  themselves 
and  those  who  heard  them!  God  forbid  that  I  should 
bewilder  you  to-day.  I  want  to  be  as  clear  and  sim- 
ple as  I  can;  and  though  I  would  be  far  from  disparag- 
ing any  of  the  subtler  and  more  elaborate  descriptions 
of  what  faith  is,  I  am  sure  that  we  may  give  our- 
selves a  definition  which  is  true  beyond  all  doubt,  and 
which  is  full  enough  to  answer  all  the  need  of  defini- 
tion which  we  shall  meet  to-day.  Faith  then,  personal 
faith,  is  this,  the  power  by  which  one  being's  vitality, 
through  love  and  obedience,  becomes  the  vitality  of 
another  being.  Simple  enough  that  is,  I  am  sure,  for 
any  man  who  will  think.  I  believe  in  you,  my  friend ; 
and  your  vitality,  your  character,  your  energy,  the 
more  I  love  and  obey  you,  passes  over  into  me. 
The  saint  believes  in  his  pattern  saint,  the  soldier 
believes  in  his  brave  captain,  the  scholar  believes  in 
his  learned  teacher.  In  every  case  the  vitality  of 
the  object  of  faith  comes  through  love  and  obedi- 
ence to  the  believer.  Faith  is  not  love  nor  obedience, 
but  it  works  by  both.  A  man  may  love  me  and  yet 
not  have  faith  in  me.  A  man  may  obey  me,  and  yet 
not  have  faith  in  me.  Faith  is  a  distinct  relation  be- 
tween soul  and  soul ;  but  it  is  recognizable  by  this  re- 
sult, that  the  life  of  one  soul  becomes  the  life  of  the 
other  soul  through  obedience  and  love.  Now  faith  in 
Christ,  what  is  it  ?  Just  in  the  same  simple  way,  it 
is  that  power  by  which  the  vitality  of  Christ,  through 
our  love  and  obedience  to  Him,  becomes  our  vitality. 
The  triumph  of  the  believing  soul  is  this,  that  he 
does  not  live  by  himself;  that  into  him  is  ever  flow- 


The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith.    337 

ing,  by  a  law  which  is  both  natural  and  supernatural, 
a  law  that  is  supernatural  only  because  it  is  the  con- 
summation and  transfiguration  of  the  most  natural  of 
all  laws — there  is  always  flowing  into  him  the  vital- 
ity of  the  Christ  whom  he  loves  and  obeys.  His 
whole  nature  beats  with  the  inflow  of  that  divine 
life.     He  lives,  but  Christ  lives  in  him. 

And  then  add  one  thing  more.  That  this  vitality 
of  Christ  which  comes  into  a  man  by  faith,  is  not  a 
strange  and  foreign  thing.  Christ  is  the  Son  of 
Man,  the  perfect  man,  the  divine  man.  Add  this, 
and  then  we  know  that  his  vitality  filling  us  is  the 
perfection  of  human  life  filling  humanity.  "They 
that  believe "  are  not  men  turned  into  something 
else  than  men,  by  the  mixture  of  a  new  and  strange 
divine  ingredient.  They  are  men  in  whom  human 
life  is  perfect  in  proportion  to  the  completeness  of 
their  faith  through  the  Son  of  Man.  They  are  men 
raised  to  the  highest  power.  The  man  in  whom 
Christ  dwells  by  faith  is  the  man  in  whom  the 
divine  ideal  of  human  life  is  perfect,  or  is  steadily 
becoming  perfect,  by  the  entrance  into  him  of  the 
perfect  life  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus,  through  obedi- 
ence and  love. 

And  now  turn  back  to  our  promise.  These  signs 
shall  follow  them  that  believe,  them  that  have  the 
complete  human  life  by  me — Christ  says.  "  If  they 
drink  any  deadly  thing  it  shall  not  harm  them — and 
they  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and  they  shall  re- 
cover." Is  that  a  prize  ?  Is  it  wages  which  is  offer- 
ed for  a  certain  meritorious  act  which  is  called  faith  ? 
22 


338     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith. 

Not  so,  surely  !  It  is  a  consequence.  It  is  a  neces- 
sity. Safety  and  helpfulness.  These  come  out  of  the 
full  life  of  Christ  in  the  soul  of  man  as  the  inevitable 
fruits.  Safety,  so  that  what  hurts  other  men  shall 
not  hurt  him.  Helpfulness,  so  that  his  brethren  about 
him  shall  live  by  his  life.  These  are  the  utterances 
of  the  vitality  of  him  who  is  thoroughly  alive.  See 
what  we  have  reached  already.  It  is  by  life,  by 
full,  vigorous,  emphatic  existence  that  men  are  safe 
in  this  world,  and  that  they  save  other  men  from 
death.  I  glory  in  such  a  statement  as  that.  It 
makes  my  Bible  shine.  Men  everywhere  are  trying 
to  be  safe  by  stifling  life  ;  by  living  just  as  low  as  pos- 
sible. Men  everywhere  are  trying  not  to  do  one 
another  harm,  trying  to  spare  each  other's  souls  by 
tender  petting,  by  guarding  them  against  any 
vigorous  contact  with  life  and  thought.  The  Bible 
comes  glowing  with  protest.  "  Not  so,"  it  says. 
"  Only  by  the  fulness  of  life  does  safety  come.  On- 
ly by  the  power  of  contact  with  life  are  sick  and  help- 
less souls  made  whole.  None  but  the  live  man  saves 
himself  or  quickens  the  dead  to  life ;  saves  himself 
or  saves  his  neighbor."  It  is  a  noble  assertion.  The 
whole  Bible,  from  its  first  page  to  its  last,  is  full  of 
the  assertion  of  the  fundamental  necessity  of  vitali- 
ty; that  the  first  thing  which  a  man  needs  in  order 
to  live  well,  is  to  live. 

Let  us  take  now  these  two  parts  of  the  promise  of 
Christ  in  turn.  He  tells  his  disciples  that  if  they 
believe  in  him,  they  shall  drink  deadly  things  and 
not  be  harmed,  and  they  shall  be  able  to  heal  the 


The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith.    339 

sick.  Safety  and  helpfulness,  these  are  the  two 
privileges  of  full  life ;  these  two  together  make  a  suc- 
cessful and  complete  career.  And  first  let  us  consider 
the  safety  which  Christ  offers.  Notice  it  is  a  safety 
not  by  the  avoidance  of  deadly  things,  but  by  the 
neutralizing  of  them  through  a  higher  and  stronger 
power.  There  is  no  such  idle  promise  as  that  if  a 
man  believes  in  Christ  a  wall  shall  be  built  around 
his  soul,  so  that  the  things  out  of  which  souls  make  sin 
cannot  come  to  him.  The  Master  knew  the  world 
too  well  for  that.  His  own  experience  on  the  hill  of  his 
temptation  was  still  fresh  in  his  memory.  He  knew 
that  life  meant  exposure,  that  sin  must  surely  beat 
at  every  one  of  these  hearts.  Nay,  that  the  things 
out  of  which  sin  is  made,  temptation,  moral  trial, 
must  enter  into  every  heart;  and  so  he  said  not,  "I 
will  lead  you  through  secluded  ways  where  none  but 
sweet  and  healthy  waters  flow  :"  but,  "  Where  I  lead 
you  there  will  be  the  streams  of  poison.  Only  if  you 
have  the  vitality  which  comes  by  faith  in  me,  your 
life  shall  be  stronger  than  the  poison's  death  ;  if  you 
drink  any  deadly  thing  it  shall  not  harm  you." 

One  thing  we  see  immediately  in  such  a  promise, 
one  condition  which  belongs  to  its  fulfilment.  It 
is  that  only  in  the  higher  action  and  mission  lay  the 
safety  from  the  lower  influence ;  and  therefore  that  the 
lower  influence  was  to  be  powerless  over  the  disciples 
only  as  they  met  it  incidentally  in  the  direct  pur- 
suance of  their  higher  task.  Jesus  had  made  this 
same  promise  once  before.  When  he  sent  the  sev- 
enty disciples  out  to  preach,  he  said  to  them  almost 


34-0     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith. 

exactly  these  same  words,  which  now  he  said  as  he 
looked  into  his  disciples'  eyes  for  the  last  time  on 
Olivet.  They  too  were  to  find  the  deadly  things 
they  touched  robbed  of  their  venom.  The  poison 
was  to  be  harmless  as  they  drank  it.  But  then 
Christ  spoke  it  of  their  special  mission.  It  was  while 
they  went  on  this  particular  preaching  journey  that 
the  pestilential  powers  of  nature  were  to  lose  their 
mischief.  But  now,  on  Olivet,  he  is  giving  his  dis- 
ciples a  life-long  career.  He  is  sending  them  forth 
consecrated  to  a  service  which  is  to  last  until  they 
die.  So  now  the  special  promise  becomes  general, 
and  covers  all  their  life  ;  now  they  are  constantly  to 
be  armed  against  the  poison ;  but  still  the  essence  of 
safety  is  to  be  in  their  perpetual  mission,  their 
unbroken  consecration.  It  was  not  that  they  might 
sit  down  at  ease  and  drink  what  pleasant  poison 
they  would,  and  yet  be  unharmed.  It  was  only  while 
they  were  living,  believing,  working,  only  as  they 
lived  and  believed  and  worked,  that  they  were  safe. 
And  the  meaning  of  that,  when  we  translate  it 
into  the  terms  of  our  life,  is  clear  enough.  Only 
those  temptations  which  we  encounter  on  the  way  of 
duty,  in  the  path  of  consecration,  only  those  has  our 
Lord  promised  us  that  we  shall  conquer.  He  sends 
us  out  to  live  and  work  for  him.  The  chances  of 
sin  which  we  meet  while  that  divine  design  of  life, 
the  life  and  work  for  Him,  is  clear  before  us,  shall 
not  hurt  us.  When  we  forget  that  design,  our  arm 
withers,  our  immunity  is  gone.  This  is  what  we 
really  mean,  what  we  often  put  blindly  enough,  when 


The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith.     341 

we  ask  whether  such  a  man  is  a  religious  man  or 
not.  We  mean,  or  we  ought  to  mean,  whether  relig- 
ion or  the  service  of  God  is  present  with  him  as  a 
continual  purpose;  not  whether  he  is  ever  tempted; 
not  whether  he  ever  sins;  we  know  the  answers  to 
those  questions  well  enough;  but  whether  behind 
all  the  temptation,  under  all  the  sin,  his  soul  is 
still  set  toward  God  with  genuine  and  strong  devo- 
tion. If  it  is,  we  know  that  he  must  come  out  safe. 
This  is  the  real  question  after  which  men  are  often 
fumbling  when  they  seem  to  make  some  mere  out- 
side thing  like  an  amulet  worn  about  the  neck,  or  a 
church-membership  written  in  a  book,  a  pledge  and 
token  that  what  would  be  sin  to  other  men  is  not 
sin  to  some  privileged,  protected  soul. 

It  is  only  when  we  are  about  some  higher  task, 
only  when  they  meet  us  as  accidents  in  the  service 
of  Christ,  that  we  have  a  right  deliberately  to  en- 
counter temptation  and  the  chance  to  sin,  and  may 
claim  the  Lord's  promise  of  immunity.  Think  in 
how  many  places  that  law  applies.  Have  I  a  right 
to  read  this  skeptical  book,  this  book  in  which  some 
able,  witty  man  has  gathered  all  his  skill  against 
my  Christian  faith  ?  It  is  a  book  of  poison.  Have  I 
a  right  to  drink  it  ?  Who  can  say  absolutely  yes  or 
no  ?  Who  does  not  feel  that  it  depends  upon  what 
sort  of  life  the  reader  brings  to  meet  the  poison  ?  If 
in  your  soul  there  is  a  passionate  desire  for  truth, 
if  you  do  really  love  and  serve  Christ,  and  want  to 
know  him  better  that  you  may  love  and  serve  him 
more,  if  this  book  comes  as  a  help  to  that,  part  of  a 


342     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith. 

study  by  which  you  shall  get  nearer  to  the  heart  of 
the  truth  and  him,  then  if  you  drink  that  deadly 
thing  it  shall  not  harm  you.  Nay,  you  may  rise  up 
from  the  reading  with  a  faith  more  deep.  Whatever 
change  your  faith  may  undergo,  it  shall  win  a  pro- 
founder  life.  But  if  there  is  no  such  earnestness,  no 
such  life  as  this,  if  it  is  mere  curiosity,  mere  desire  to 
be  fine  and  liberal,  mere  defiance,  a  mere  wanton- 
ness, then  the  poison  has  it  all  its  own  way ;  there  is 
no  vigorous  life  to  meet  it ;  and  its  death  spreads 
through  the  nature  till  it  finds  the  heart. 

This  is  the  only  true  discrimination.  The  old 
policy  which  makes  indexes  of  forbidden  books  can 
never  do  anything  for  faith.  Whatever  a  man  can 
read  in  honesty  and  humility  and  consecration,  and 
the  pure  desire  of  truth,  let  him  read  it;  and  if  there 
be  any  deadly  thing  in  what  he  reads  it  shall  not 
harm  him.  I  say  this  solemnly,  deliberately, 
thoughtfully,  knowing  that  many  young  people  are 
hearing,  and  I  hope  are  noting  what  I  say.  I  say  it 
without  hesitation  ;  only  I  beg  you  to  remember  how 
profound  are  the  conditions  which  alone  give  one  the 
right  to  read  the  skeptics  and  yet  hope  to  keep 
his  faith.  It  is  a  solemn  thing  for  a  man  first  to  be 
sure  that  he  has  indeed  honesty,  humility,  consecra- 
tion, and  the  pure  desire  of  truth.  The  very  solemn- 
ity and  responsibility  with  which  he  searches  him- 
self that  he  may  be  sure  of  that,  will  be  his  safest 
safeguard. 

There  are  dabblers  in  unbelief  on  every  side  of  us, 
who  are  being  poisoned  through  and  through  by  the 


The  Safety  and  Helpfutness  of  Faith.     343 

scepticism  which  they  drink  in.  There  are  other  men 
who  know  vastly  more  than  they  about  what  unbelief 
has  said,  who  are  more  full  of  real  faith  for  all  their 
study.  Everything  depends  upon  the  state  in  which 
their  spiritual  constitutions  met  the  struggle  and  upon 
what  it  was  that  took  them  into  the  midst  of  doubt. 
And  so  it  is  evey  where  with  all  exposures  of  the 
spiritual  life.  "What  took  you  there?"  "  What  right 
had  you  to  be  there  ?  "  These  are  the  critical  ques- 
tions on  which  everything  depends.  If  you  are 
passing  through  temptation  with  your  eye  fixed  on 
a  pure,  true  life  beyond  it,  temptation  being  only  a 
necessary  stage  upon  your  way,  so  long  as  you 
keep  that  purpose,  that  resolution,  that  ideal,  you 
shall  be  safe.  If  you  are  in  temptation  for  tempta- 
tion's sake,  with  no  purpose  beyond  it,  you  are  lost. 

Two  men  walk  through  the  vilest  streets  here  in 
our  city.  One  of  them  has  nothing  in  him  but  self- 
ishness and  low  love  of  self-indulgence.  The  other 
is  glowing  with  human  charity,  seeking  perhaps 
some  child  of  his  who  has  wandered  into  that  dread- 
ful hell,  or  longing,  it  may  be,  to  pluck  out  of  the 
burning  some  man's  or  woman's  life,  whose  fiery  ini- 
quity makes  those  streets  the  streets  of  hell.  Why 
is  it  that  one  man  fills  himself  full  of  the  iniquity 
through  which  he  walks,  steeps  himself  in  its  vile- 
ness,  and  the  other  comes  out  with  garments  all  the 
whiter  for  the  fire?  Is  it  not  what  Jesus  said,  "  This 
sign  shall  follow  them  that  believe.  If  they  drink 
any  deadly  thing  it  shall  not  harm  them  "  ? 

Two  men  go  into  politics.  One  of  them  wants  office ; 


344     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith. 

the  other  wants  honesty  in  government,  faithfulness 
to  national  obligation,  the  preservation  of  the  public 
purity  and  credit.  AVhat  shall  be  their  personal  fate, 
the  fate  of  their  personal  characters  there,  in  the 
political  turmoil  ?  One  of  them  has  no  faith.  It  is 
faith  that  sends  the  other  where  perhaps  his  feet  half 
refuse  to  go.  According  to  their  faith  so  is  it  unto 
them.  And  when,  while  one  man  sinks  from  depth  to 
depth  of  unscrupulous  selfishness  and  shameless  cor- 
ruption, the  other  seems  to  breathe  the  foulest  air 
without  a  weakness  or  a  taint,  I  seem  to  see  as  clear 
a  fulfilment  as  the  world  can  show,  of  that  which 
Jesus  said,  "  This  sign  shall  follow  them  that  believe. 
If  they  drink  any  deadly  thing  it  shall  not  harm 
them." 

The  religious  man  who  lives  and  works  in  one 
church,  one  denomination,  is  saved  from  the  poison 
of  narrowness  and  sectarianism  by  the  larger  faith 
with  which  he  believes  and  rejoices  in  the  work  of 
Christ  his  Master,  and  the  salvation  of  men  his 
brethren,  wherever  he  can  see  it  going  on.  The 
woman  in  social  life  bears  a  charmed  life  through  all 
its  deadening  frivolity,  because  the  life  of  Christ  is  in 
her,  and  she  ever  counts  herself  and  all  of  those 
whom  her  life  touches  in  the  lightest  contact,  the 
children  of  God,  sacred,  and  capable  of  pure  and 
beautiful  life.  Everywhere  the  amulet  is  faith,  some 
great  idea,  some  large,  long  hope.  Everywhere, 
where  death  rages  most  wantonly,  "  the  just  shall 
live  by  faith." 

What  would  you  say  to  the  young  man  who  you 


The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith.     345 

knew  was  asked  to  go  into  some  dangerous  trade  ? 
Not  a  trade  Avhere  boilers  sometimes  exploded  or 
where  poisonous  gases  crept  into  the  lungs,  but  a 
trade  where  honesty  was  constantly  beseiged,  or 
where  temperance  was  hourly  solicited,  or  where  a 
man  was  always  dragged  down  towards  hard  and 
cynical  thoughts  of  his  fellow-men.  What  would  you 
say  to  him  ?  If  the  danger  was  a  certainty,  if  no  man 
could  possibly  live  in  that  trade  and  not  be  cursed 
with  its  curse,  then  there  would  be  only  one  thing 
to  say.  He  must  not  go  at  all.  No  man  has  any 
right  to  be  doing  that  hateful  business  anywhere 
upon  the  earth,  no  matter  how  it  may  seem  as  if  the 
world  would  suffer  if  all  men  gave  it  up.  That  case 
is  plain.  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  soul?  But  if  that  is  not 
so.  If  men  do  live  in  this  dangerous  trade  and  keep 
their  souls  pure,  what  then  shall  you  say  to  your 
young  friend  who  thinks  of  entering  into  it?  "Be 
sure,  be  sure  that  you  have  faith.  Be  sure  that  you 
are  one  of  them  that  believe.  Be  sure  that  you  are 
going  there  for  something  more  than  money.  Be 
sure  that  you  reverence  the  life  you  carry  there.  Be 
sure  that  you  go  there  as  the  child  of  God.  If  you 
go  so,  then  go,  and  Christ's  word  shall  be  fulfilled  to 
you.  In  fear  of  him,  in  reverence  for  yourself,  in 
charity  for  your  brethren  shall  be  your  safety.  And 
protected  by  that  faith,  "  if  you  drink  any  deadly 
thing  it  shall  not  harm  you." 

There  is  a  deep  solemnity  about  the  sight  when  a 
group  of  young  men,  a  generation  of  young  men, 


346     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith. 

come  up  to  life  together.  To  whom  among  them 
will  it  be  life  indeed?  to  whom  will  it  be  death  ?  It 
is  as  if  we  saw  a  line  of  men  march  into  a  region 
where  a  fever  raged.  How  we  should  search  their 
faces  to  see  which  among  them  carried  the  vitality 
which  could  keep  them  safe.  The  pestilence  is  not 
whimsical  or  indiscriminate.  It  knows  its  victims 
when  it  sees  them  coming.  And  so  the  world  of 
wickedness,  the  world  of  corruption,  impurity  and 
spiritual  death — it  too  must  know  its  victims.  It 
too  must  laugh  with  anticipated  triumph  as  it  sees 
coming  up  to  it  a  frivolous  and  faithless  soul,  must 
cringe  and  know  its  powerlessness  when  some  man 
filled  with  faith,  comes  humbly,  strong  with  the 
strength  of  Him  in  whom  he  trusts.  For  him  the 
world  in  vain  may  mix  its  poisons.  This  is  the  crit- 
icalness  that  one  feels  as  he  sees  any  group  of  men 
beginning  life;  any  class  of  young  men  leaving 
college;  any  generation  meeting  the  novel  needs  and 
dangers  of  a  new  age  of  the  world. 

So  much  I  say  distinctively  of  the  first  part  of 
Christ's  promise  to  the  faithful  man.  He  promises 
him  safety.  But  that  is  not  all.  Hear  once  again  the 
other  part.  "  If  he  drink  any  deadly  thing  it  shall 
not  harm  him,"  and  "  He  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick 
and  they  shall  recover."  Safety  and  helpfulness. 
He  shall  be  safe  and  he  shall  save  others  too.  These 
two  things  go  together,  not  merely  in  this  special 
promise  of  the  Saviour,  but  in  all  life.  Safety  and 
helpfulness.  So  is  the  whole  world  bound  into  a 
whole,  so  does  the  good  that  comes  to  any  man  tend 


The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith.    347 

to  diffuse  itself  and  touch  the  lives  of  all,  that  these 
two  things  are  true.  First,  that  no  man  can  be 
really  safe,  really  secure  that  the  world  shall  not  harm 
and  poison  him,  unless  there  is  going  out  from  him  a 
living  and  life-giving  influence  to  other  men.  And 
second,  that  no  man  is  really  helping  other  men  unless 
there  is  true  life  in  his  own  soul.  Both  of  these  seem 
to  me  to  be  great  and  ever-present  truths.  Men  try  to 
act  as  if  they  were  not  true,  and  thence  comes  much 
bad,  useless  living.  Men  think  that  they  can  be  safe 
without  being  helpful,  and  thence  come  all  the  selfish 
notions  of  salvation.  Merely  to  crawl  through  life 
with  face  and  mouth  so  bandaged  up  with  caution 
that  the  foul  air  of  life  cannot  affect  us;  merely  to 
strike  out  from  the  wreck  of  a  fallen  world  and  swim 
ashore,  shaking  off  all  the  drowning  men  who 
clutch  at  us  in  the  wild  water,  and  leaving  the 
screaming  wretches  to  their  fate,  the  man  who  seeks 
salvation  so,  finds  at  last  to  his  disappointment  and 
dismay  that  he  is  not  saved.  It  is  not  the  hands 
that  catch  us  and  hold  on  to  us,  it  is  the  hands  of 
helpless  men  which  we  shake  off  in  our  selfishness 
that  drag  us  down. 

And  then  the  other  truth.  No  man  can  really  save 
another  unless  he  saves  himself.  It  is  the  good  man 
by  his  good  deeds  that  gives  life  to  the  world.  The 
vitality  which  bad  men  by  their  bad  deeds  seem  to 
give,  is  not  vitality,  but  death.  You  remember  how 
they  taunted  Jesus  on  the  cross.  "  He  saved  others, 
Himself  he  cannot  save,"  they  said.  But  they  were 
Wrong.     It  could  not  be  as  they  said.     We  know 


348     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith. 

that  he  was  saving  himself  while  he  saved  the 
world.  He  was  fulfilling  his  work.  He  was  glori- 
fying his  Father.  He  was  entering  into  life  as  death 
crept  over  him.  And  always  it  is  the  living,  not  the 
dead,  who  give  life.  It  is  the  man  not  who  has  sin- 
ned deeply  but  who  has  known  by  intense  sympathy 
what  sin  is,  how  strong,  how  terrible,  and  yet  escaped 
it  for  himself.  He  is  the  man  who  helps  the  sin- 
ners most.  He  is  the  anointed  one  who  carries  on 
and  carries  round  the  Christ's  salvation.  In  their 
deepest  need  the  wickedest  men  look  to  the  purest 
men  they  know;  the  deadest  to  the  livest  ;  first  to 
those  who  they  think  have  most  escaped  sin,  then 
to  those  who  they  think  have  been  most  cleansed  of 
sin  by  repentance  and  forgiveness. 

These  two  things  belong  essentially  together — 
Safety  and  Helpfulness — and  both  of  these  Jesus  pro- 
mises to  the  men  who  believe  in  Him.  Turn  then  for 
a  few  hurried  moments  to  the  second  helpfulness  or 
the  life-giving,  the  life-strengthening  power.  "  They 
shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and  they  shall  recover." 
If  I  read  those  words  spiritually,  if  I  make  them  the 
promise  and  prophecy  of  that  wonderful  power  which 
in  all  times,  in  all  religions,  spiritual  life  has  had  to 
extend  itself,  like  fire,  from  any  one  point  which  it 
has  already  occupied,  to  everything  within  its  reach 
which  is  inflammable,  which  is  capable  of  the  same 
burning  life,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  way  in  which  the 
promise  is  fulfilled  is  by  the  clothing  of  the  believing 
life  with  two  qualities  which  are  expressed  by  these 
two  words — testimony  and  transmission.     Here  is  a 


The  Safety  and  Helpfdness  of  Faith.    349 

man  in  whom  I  know  that  the  promise  of  Christ  is 
certainly  fulfilled.  He  is  a  believer,  and  through  his 
open  faith  the  life  of  Christ  flows  into  him  constantly, 
and  is  his  life.  Full  of  that  life,  he  gives  it  every- 
where he  goes.  The  sick  in  soul  touch  his  soul  and 
are  well  again.  The  discouraged  find  new  bravery, 
the  yielding  souls  are  clad  anew  with  firmness.  The 
frivolous  grow  serious,  the  mean  are  stung  or 
tempted  into  generosity,  and  sinners  hate  their  sin 
and  crave  a  better  life,  wherever  this  man  goes.  Oh ! 
there  are  such  men  in  the  world.  There  always  have 
been.  The  world  finds  them  out,  and  souls  half-con- 
scious of  disease  creep  to  their  doors.  Friends  bring 
their  friends  into  the  presence  of  these  healing  lives 
as  of  old  the  men  of  Jerusalem  "brought  forth  the 
sick  into  the  streets,  and  laid  them  on  beds  and 
couches,  that  at  least  the  shadow  of  Peter  pass- 
ing by  might  overshadow  some  of  them." 

The  power  of  these  life-giving  lives  seem  to  me,  I 
say,  to  be  described  in  these  two  words — testimony 
and  transmission.  It  is  first  in  the  testimony  which 
they  bear  by  the  very  fact  of  their  own  abundant 
life.  They  show  the  presence,  they  assert  the  possi- 
bility of  vitality.  And  very  often  this  is  what  souls 
whose  spiritual  life  is  weak  and  low  need  to  have 
done  for  them.  Men  half  alive  grow  to  doubt  of  the 
fuller  life  in  anybody.  Men  try  to  realize  the 
descriptions  of  religion  which  they  hear,  and,  falling 
short  of  them,  they  grow  ready  to  believe  that  relig- 
ion is  a  thing  of  excited  imaginations,  and  to  give  up 
all  thought  of  making  it  real  in  ihem selves.     It  is 


35°     The  Safely  and  Helpfulness  of  Failh. 

not  only  the  badness  in  the  world,  it  is  the  dreadful 
incredulity  of  good,  it  is  the  despair  and  lack  of 
struggle,  which  tells  how  low  ebbs  out  the  tide  of 
spiritual  life.  Then  comes  the  man  in  whom  spirit- 
ual life  is  a  real,  deep,  strong,  positive  thing.  The 
first  work  which  that  man  does  is  to  bear  the  simple 
testimony  of  his  life  that  life  is  possible.  Already, 
just  in  acknowledgment  of  that,  the  sick  faces  begin 
to  revive  and  the  sick  eyes  look  up  to  him.  The 
brave  and  godly  boy  among  a  group  of  boys  just 
learning  to  be  proud  of  godlessness  and  contemptuous 
of  piety — the  man  of  golden  principles  among  the 
skeptics  of  the  street— the  one  true  penitent  rejoic- 
ing in  a  new  and  certain  hope  out  of  the  ranks  of 
flagrant  sin — these  instantly,  the  moment  that  they 
begin  to  live,  begin  to  bear  their  testimony  of  life, 
and  so  make  life  about  them.  The  hand  just  trem- 
bling with  the  mute  and  awed  but  certain  conscious- 
ness of  its  own  new  life,though  it  be  but  a  child's  hand, 
feeling  for  support,  there  is  a  wondrous  power  in  it, 
if  it  falls  upon  some  poor  decrepit  faithless  soul,  to 
work  there  the  fulfilment  of  the  Saviour's  promise 
that  they  which  believe  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick 
and  they  shall  recover. 

And  besides  testimony  I  also  said  transmission. 
The  highest  statement  of  the  culture  of  a  human 
nature  and  of  the  best  attainment  that  is  set  before 
it,  is  that,  as  it  grows  better,  it  grows  more  transpar- 
ent and  more  simple,  more  capable  therefore  of  sim- 
ply and  truly  transmitting  the  life  and  will  of  God 
which  is  behind  it.     The  thought  of  a  man,  as  heim- 


The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith.     351 

proves  and  strengthens,  getting  the  control  of  his 
own  powers  and  becoming  more  and  more  a  source 
of  power  over  other  men,  this  thought,  which  has  no 
doubt  its  own  degree  of  truth,  is  limited  and  vulgar 
beside  the  breadth  and  fineness  of  the  other  idea, 
that  as  a  man  is  trained  and  cultured,  as  the  various 
events  of  life  create  their  changes  in  him,  as  tempests 
beat  him  and  sunshine  bathe  him,  as  he  wrestles 
with  temptation  and  yields  to  grace,  as  he  goes  on 
through  the  spring-time,  the  summer  and  the  autumn 
of  his  life,  the  one  highest  purpose  and  result  of  it 
all  is  to  beat  and  fuse  his  life  into  transparency,  so 
that  it  can  transmit  the  life  of  God.  For  all  good  is 
from  God,  and  he  uses  our  lives,  all  of  them,  to  reach 
other  men's  lives  with.  Only  the  difference  is  this: 
upon  a  life  of  sin,  all  hard  and  black,  God  shines  as 
the  sun  shines  on  the  black,  hard  marble,  and  by 
reflection  thence  strikes  on  the  things  around,  leav- 
ing the  centre  of  the  marble  itself  always  dark.  But 
on  a  life  of  obedience  and  faith,  God  shines  as  the 
sun  shines  on  a  block  of  chrystal,  sending  its  radiance 
through  the  willing  and  transparent  mass  and  warm- 
ing and  lighting  it  all  into  its  inmost  depths. 

I  wish  that  there  were  time  to  develope  and  de- 
scribe the  privilege  and  power  of  belief  to  become  the 
transmitter  of  that  which  it  believes  in.  The  figure 
which  I  have  just  used  tells  the  story,  and  I  must 
leave  it  with  you  as  I  abruptly  close.  Only  remem- 
ber that  no  words  can  tell,  no  figure  can  begin  to 
represent  the  fulness  of  the  privilege  of  life  which 
belongs  to  those   who   genuinely  believe   in   Jesus 


352     The  Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Fxith. 

Christ.  Nothing  bat  his  own  life  can  tell  us  fully 
what  the  life  is  that  he  means  to  give  to  us.  Safety 
and  helpfulness.  As  safe  as  he  was,  as  able  to 
touch  the  blackest  sin  and  yet  be  white,  to  taste  ol 
death  and  thereby  be  more  thoroughly  alive.  So  safe 
shall  His  complete  disciples  be.  As  helpful  as  he  was ; 
as  full  of  the  testimony  of  life  and  its  possibility  to 
half-dead  souls.  As  purely  transparent  in  obedience, 
in  self-forgetfulness,  in  essential  sonship  kept  clear 
and  unclouded  by  filial  love.  So  helpful  shall  they  be 
who  believe  in  Him.  As  live  as  he  was,  nay,  as  live 
as  he  is  forever,  shall  we  be  when  our  human  life 
becomes  the  utterance  of  his,  as  his  divine  Life  k 
the  utterance  of  God's. 


SERMON  XX. 

AN   OLD-YEAR   SERMON. 

"Let  your  moderation   be  known   unto  all  men.     The  Lord  ia  at 
hand." — Phtt.t.tppians  iv.  4. 

IT  is  not  easy  to  decide  just  what  the  apostles 
expected  with  reference  to  the  second  coming  of 
the  Lord.  Sometimes  it  seemed  as  if  they  looked 
almost  immediately  to  see  the  opening  sky  and  the 
descending  chariot.  At  other  times,  with  a  more 
general  faith,  they  seemed  to  anticipate  what  has 
come  to  pass,  the  slow  and  spiritual  occupation  of 
the  standards  and  purposes  of  human  life  by  the 
spirit  of  Jesus,  to  be  quickened  at  some  future  day 
and  brought  to  some  great  consummation  which  it  is 
impossible  to  describe  beforehand,  but  which,  when 
it  comes,  will  centre  about  him  and  crown  him  as 
the  Master  of  the  world.  Sometimes  one  of  these 
thoughts,  sometimes  the  other  seems  to  represent  St. 
Paul's  anticipation.  But,  whatever  was  the  form 
which  their  expectation  more  or  less  definitely 
assumed,  the  great  fact  about  him  and  the  other  dis- 
ciples was  that  they  always  were  expecting.  Their 
33  353 


354  The  Great  Expectation. 

look  was  always  forward ;  and  they  found  abundant 
clearness  and  abundant  inspiration  in  their  expec- 
tancy when  they  described  the  thing  which  they 
expected  as  a  "coming  of  the  Lord."  "Maranatha." 
"  The  Lord  will  come."  It  was  one  of  their  customs 
to  greet  one  another  with  that  salutation. 

We  cannot  probably  imagine  how  completely  this 
habit  of  expectation  had  possession  of  their  lives.  It 
must  have  given  color  and  meaning  to  everything 
they  did.  Every  step  they  took  in  life  brought  them 
a  little  nearer  to  that  great  end  and  purpose.  They 
set  out  on  a  voyage,  and  as  they  turned  their  eyes 
away  from  the  fading  shore  and  looked  across  the 
broad  waters,  they  seemed  to  be  sailing  out  to  meet 
the  coming  Lord.  Two  of  them  parted  from  each 
other,  not  knowing  when  they  were  to  meet  again, 
and  they  said  to  themselves.  Whenever  it  is  it  will 
be  in  some  nearer  presence  of  the  Lord.  One  of  them 
moved  to  a  new  dwelling,  and,  as  he  entered  into  the 
door  of  what  was  to  be  his  future  home,  its  rooms 
became  sacred  to  him  because  in  them  he  was  to 
witness  the  approach  of  Christ;  in  them  Christ  was 
to  be  nearer  to  him  than  ever  in  the  house  which  he 
had  left  behind.  "  Now  is  our  salvation  nearer  than 
when  we  first  believed."  Those  words  which  once 
came  from  the  apostle's  lips,  expressed  the  feeling 
and  the  power  which  was  always  in  all  the  apostles' 
hearts. 

And  it  has  been  this  expectation  of  a  coming  of 
the  Lord  which,  ever  since  the  time  of  the  apostles, 
has   always   been  the  inspiration  of  the   Christian 


The  Great  Expectation.  355 

world.  The  noblest  souls  always  have  believed  that 
humanity  was  capable  of  containing,  and  was  sure 
sooner  or  later  to  receive,  a  larger  and  deeper  infusion 
of  divinity.  The  promise  of  Christianity  is  as  yet 
but  half  fulfilled.  All  that  has  been  done  yet  in  all 
the  Christian  centuries  is  only  the  sketch  and  pre- 
lude of  what  is  yet  to  be  done.  This  has  been  the 
faith  of  every  Christian  reformer.  This  is  what  has 
made  it  easy  for  souls  which  loved  the  dear  associa- 
tions of  the  past  as  much  as  any  others,  to  cut  loose 
from  them  and  sail  out  on  unknown  seas.  It  has 
not  been  mere  wilfulness.  It  has  been  really  the 
profoundest  faith.  It  has  dared  to  think  of  human 
history  not  as  a  great  flat  plain  on  which  men  wan- 
dered pleasantly  but  aimlessly,  always  coming  back 
at  last  to  the  dead  camp-fires  where  they  had  slept  be- 
fore, but  as  a  flight  of  shining  stairs  up  which  men 
were  to  struggle  toilsomely  but  eagerly  toward  a  day 
of  the  Lord,  a  kingdom  of  heaven  which  was  waiting 
for  them  at  the  top. 

And  as  the  noblest  souls  have  thought  of  the 
world's  history,  so  the  most  earnest  men  and  women 
have  always  thought  of  their  own  lives.  The  power 
of  any  life  lies  in  its  expectancy.  "What  do  you 
hope  for  ?  What  do  you  expect  ?  "  The  answer  to 
these  questions  is  the  measure  of  the  degree  in  which 
a  man  is  living.  He  who  can  answer  these  questions 
by  the  declaration,  "The  Lord  is  at  hand:  I  am  ex- 
pecting a  higher,  deeper,  more  pervading  mastery  of 
Christ " — we  know  that  he  is  thoroughly  alive. 

And,    as   I   have  already  intimated,    one   of  the 


356  The  Great  Expectation. 

great  signs  of  how  strong  life  is  in  such  a  man  will 
be  the  way  in  which  he  leaves  his  past.  What  a 
difference  there  is  in  men  about  that !  Some  men 
are  always  driven  out  of  their  past  and  leave  it  only 
because  they  cannot  stay  there.  Other  men  go 
forth  from  their  past  because  they  have  grown 
weary  and  disgusted  with  it,  and  are  willing  to  flee 
from  it  for  pure  love  of  change.  Other  men  leave 
their  past  full  of  honor  for  it,  full  of  gratitude  for 
the  equipment  which  it  has  given  them  for  their 
future  life,  but  full  also  of  the  attraction  of  the  fu- 
ture in  which  the  equipment  which  their  past  has 
given  them  is  to  be  used.  Here  on  a  ship's  deck 
which  goes  sailing  out  of  port  some  day  there  are 
three  men  together.  All  of  them  are  leaving  the 
home-land.  Behind  all  three  alike,  standing  on  the 
same  deck,  the  same  land  fades  away  and  is  lost  out 
of  sight.  But  is  it  the  same  thing  to  all  of  them  ? 
Has  leaving  home  for  all  of  them  the  same  meaning  ? 
One  is  an  exile,  who,  having  committed  flagrant 
crime,  is  permitted  to  live  only  on  condition  that  he 
shall  leave  his  country  and  never  come  back  to  it 
again.  One  is  an  idler,  who,  having  exhausted  the 
surface  of  the  land  where  he  belongs,  is  sailing  now 
to  feed  his  restlessness  in  mere  change,  in  the  mere 
sight  of  things  he  never  saw  before.  The  third  is  a 
discoverer,  who  has  gathered  all  the  knowledge  and 
character  which  he  could  gain  at  home,  and  is  now  set 
to  use  them  in  reading  the  secret  of  some  hidden 
country  and  making  th^-  world  larger  for  mankind. 
How  different  they  are  !    with   what  different  eyes 


The  Great  Expectation.  357 

they  see  the  familiar  shore  sink  down  into  the  sea ! 
But  they  are  not  more  different  than  are  three  men 
who  leave  any  one  period  of  life  behind  them  and  go 
out  into  a  new  one,  one  of  them  simply  with  the 
feeling  that  he  cannot  help  himself,  another  with 
the  vague  sense  that  the  past  has  grown  tame  and 
the  future  will  offer  something  new,  and  the  third 
with  the  eager  hope  that  the  Lord  is  at  hand,  that  in 
the  larger  circumstances  and  with  the  maturer  pow- 
ers he  will  come  nearer  to  and  know  more  of  Christ. 
You  know  of  course  why  I  have  thus  begun  to 
speak  to  you  to-day.  It  is  the  last  Sunday  of  1884. 
The  year  which  came  to  us  twelve  months  ago,  all 
fresh  and  young,  is  old  and  weary.  Before  next  Sun- 
day a  new  year  will  come  to  crowd  him  from  his  place. 
On  such  a  Sunday  it  is  not  a  mere  habit,  it  is  a 
natural  and  healthy  instinct,  which  makes  us  stand 
between  the  new  year  and  the  old,  between  the  liv- 
ing and  the  dead,  and  listen  to  them  as  they  speak 
to  one  another.  Can  we  not  almost  hear  the  words 
they  say,  and  is  not  their  deepest  burden  something 
like  this  which  I  have  tried  to  express  ?  The  old 
year  says  to  the  new  year,  "Take  this  man  and  show 
him  greater  things  than  I  have  been  able  to  show 
him.  You  must  be  for  him  a  richer,  fuller  day  of 
the  Lord  than  I  could  be."  The  new  year  says  to  the 
old,  "I  will  take  him  and  do  for  him  the  best  that  I 
can  do.  But  all  that  I  can  do  for  him  will  be  possi- 
ble only  in  virtue  of  the  preparation  which  you  have 
made,  only  because  of  what  you  have  done  for  him 
already." 


358  The  Great  Expectation. 

We  want  to  think  then  about  men  going  forward 
to  greater  things,  leaving  the  past,  in  hope  and  ex- 
pectation of  a  greater  future.  As  I  announce  that 
subject,  I  can  almost  hear  some  cynical  bystander 
say,  "  You  may  spare  yourself  the  trouble  of  that 
sermon.  For  one  half  of  your  hearers  it  will  be 
needless.  For  the  other  half  it  will  be  useless.  The 
young  people  know  without  your  telling  them,  know 
better  than  you  can  tell  them,  that  the  future  is  very 
great  and  glorious  and  splendid;  and  you  will  not 
convince  the  people  who  are  no  longer  young  that 
the  future  will  be  in  any  great  way  different  from 
the  past.  Perhaps  there  are  a  few  just  trembling 
between  youth  and  age,  not  having  wholly  lost  the 
vision  of  the  one  nor  gained  the  insight  of  the  other, 
whom  you  may  persuade  to  cling  to  their  illusions  a 
little  longer ;  but  is  that  really  worth  your  while  ? 
By-and-by  the  eyes  must  open  and  the  vision  disap- 
pear, and  then  the  monotony  of  life  must  be  accepted, 
and  the  man  give  up  all  expectation  of  anything 
except  running  the  same  round  of  routine  till  he 
dies." 

I  want  at  least  to  bear  a  protest  against  the 
mockery  of  such  words  as  those,  and  to  assert  that 
that  cry,  "  The  Lord  is  at  hand,"  may  and  ought  to 
be  in  the  ears  of  every  man  as  he  goes  from  the  old 
year  to  the  new. 

There  are  really  two  divisions  of  our  subject.  We 
may  think  first  of  the  way  in  which  a  man  becomes 
more  conscious  of  the  God  who  is  already  close  tc 
him,  and  second  of  the  way  in  which  God  actually 


The  Great  Expectation.  359 

comes  closer  to  him,  year  by  year.  They  are  what 
the  philosophers  would  call  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  thoughts  of  God's  nearness.  And  we  start 
with  that  which  must  be  true,  the  assertion  that  the 
more  varied  and  manifold  a  man's  experiences  have 
become,  the  more  he  has  the  chance  to  know  of  God, 
the  more  chance  God  has  to  show  Himself  to  him. 
Every  new  experience  is  a  new  opportunity  of  know- 
ing God.  Every  experience  is  like  a  jewel  set  into 
the  texture  of  our  life,  on  which  God  shines  and 
makes  interpretation  and  revelation  of  himself.  You 
hang  a  great  rich  dark  cloth  up  into  the  sunlight, 
and  the  sun  shines  on  it  and  shows  the  broad  gen- 
eral color  that  is  there.  Then  one  by  one  you  sew 
great  precious  stones  upon  the  cloth,  and  each  one,  as 
you  set  it  there,  catches  the  sunlight  and  pours  it 
forth  in  a  flood  of  peculiar  glory.  A  diamond  here, 
an  emerald  there,  an  opal  there,  the  sun  seems  to 
rejoice  as  he  finds  each  moment  a  new  interpreter  of 
his  splendor,  until  at  last  the  whole  jewelled  cloth  is 
burning  and  blazing  with  the  gorgeous  revelation. 

Now  a  much-living  life,  a  life  of  manifold  experi- 
ences, is  like  a  robe  which  bursts  forth  of  itself  to 
jewels.  They  are  sewn  on  from  the  outside.  They 
burn  out  of  its  substance  as  the  stars  burn  out  of  the 
heart  of  the  night.  And  God  shines  with  new  rev- 
elation upon  every  one.  And  the  man  who  feels 
himself  going  out  of  a  dying  year  with  these  jewels 
of  experience  which  have  burned  forth  from  his  life 
during  its  months,  and  knowing  that  God  in  the  New 
Year  will  shine  upon  them  and  reveal  Himself  by 


360  The  Great  Expectation. 

them,  may  well  go  full  of  expectation,  saying,  "The 
Lord  is  at  hand." 

Life  may  be  always  expecting  new  sight  of  God, 
because  life  is  always  acquiring  new  experiences  on 
which,  through  which,  God  may  declare  His  nearness 
and  His  love.  We  may,  if  we  will,  turn  the  jewelled 
cloth  away  from  the  sun,  but  if  we  let  him  shine 
upon  it,  he  must  make  himself  known.  To  most  of 
you — shall  I  not  say  to  all  of  you? — have  come  in  this 
past  year,  some  new  experiences,  some  things  which 
you  have  never  known  before.  Some  of  you  have 
known  for  the  first  time  what  it  is  to  be  poor. 
Perhaps  some  of  you  have  known  for  the  first  time 
what  it  is  to  be  rich.  Some  of  you  have  had  your 
first  sickness.  Some  of  you  have  felt  for  the  first 
time  the  keenest  suffering  in  the  death  of  your  best 
beloved.  Some  of  you  have  begun  the  new  joy  of 
family  life.  Some  of  you  have  become  fathers  or  moth- 
ers. Some  of  you  with  yet  deeper  changes,  which 
bore  no  outside  witness  of  themselves,  have  laid  hold 
upon  new  and  inspiring  ideas.  Some  of  you  have 
given  yourselves  up  to  a  profession;  some  of  you 
have  made  a  new  friend;  some  of  you  have  entered 
into  the  communion  of  the  Church  and  put  on  Jesus 
Christ.  These  are  the  jewels  on  the  cloth  of  gold  of 
your  life.  As  you  go  forth,  knowing  that  God  must 
have  something  new  of  himself  to  show  to  you 
through  these  experiences  as  they  become  more  and 
more  set  and  fastened  in  your  life  as  its  habits  and 
possessions,  can  you  help  being  full  of  expectation  ? 


The  Great  Expectation.  361 

Can  you  help  saying  to  yourself:  "  The  Lord  is  at 
hand"? 

Is  there  not  something  of  the  same  kind  when  in 
the  midst  of  some  great  experience  you  look  forward 
to  meeting  again,  with  the  power  of  that  new  exper- 
ience in  you,  your  most  noble  and  many-sided  friend  ? 
"  It  may  be,"  you  say  to  yourself,  "  that  this  experi- 
ence will  be  the  key  which  I  have  needed  to  unlock 
that  closed  chamber  of  his  nature,  before  which  I 
have  so  often  stood  and  wondered."  You  see  him 
coming  to  you,  and  new  light  streams  forth  from  him. 
You  have  gained  a  new  power  of  reflecting  him. 
Henceforth  your  whole  life  with  him  is  going  to  be 
a  richer,  deeper  thing.  Make  this  mutual ;  let  each 
of  two  friends,  with  multiplying  experience,  gain  new 
power  to  reflect  the  other's  light;  and  have  you  not 
the  whole  philosophy  of  deepening  friendship,  of  the 
way  in  which  those  who  are  true  friends  become 
more  and  more  to  each  other  every  year,  the  longer 
that  they  live  ? 

A  soul  goes  forth  from  this  world  and  enters  into 
heaven.  Surely  a  part  of  that  intensified  and 
deepened  sight  of  God  which  is  to  be  its  privilege 
and  glory  there,  will  lie  in  the  abundance  of  experi- 
ence which  it  has  accumulated  here,  and  which  will 
belong  to  it  forever.  Evei'y  treasured  experience 
will  be  to  it  like  an  eye  with  which  to  gaze  on  God. 
We  shall  know  him  better  forever  and  forever,  be- 
cause of  that  success  or  this  disappointment,  because 
this  friend  played  us  false,  or  because  the  market 
turned  just  as  our  fortune  was  on  the  point  of  being 


362  The  Great  Expectation. 

made.  Could  anything  make  the  events  which  hap- 
pen to  us  here  on  earth  seem  more  interesting  and 
significant  than  such  a  truth  as  that  ? 

Thus  much  we  say  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Lord  is  constantly  coming  by  the  ever  increasing 
capacity,  the  ever  multiplying  experience  of  man,  to 
discover  and  display  more  and  more  fully  how  near 
He  is  already.  But  this  subjective  interpretation 
is  not  all.  There  is  the  other,  the  objective  side. 
We  must  pass  to  that.  In  these  days  man  is  so  con- 
scious of  himself,  so  large  a  portion  of  his  time  and 
thought  is  given  to  the  consideration  of  himself,  he  is 
so  aware  of  the  fact  of  his  own  activity,  that  some- 
times it  seems  as  if  God  were  wholly  passive,  stand- 
ing off  there  and  waiting  for  man  to  come  to  Him; 
and  meanwhile  only  making  revelation  of  Himself  to 
man  as  man  turns  to  Him  this  or  that  side  of  his 
reflecting  nature.  Other  times  have  been  full  of 
the  truth  of  the  activity  of  God.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment is  all  alive  with  that  idea,  and  constantly  in 
history  there  have  recurred  ages  full  of  the  spirit  of 
the  Old  Testament,  which  think  of  God  as  He  was 
thought  of  in  those  vigorous  and  stirring  books. 
That  God  is  seeking  after  man,  changing  His  meth- 
ods of  treatment  according  to  man's  behavior,  actual- 
ly coming  nearer  to  or  going  farther  off  from  man, 
not  simply  making  Himself  known  as  near  or  far,  but 
actually  changing  from  near  to  far,  from  far  to  near, 
that  is  the  Old  Testament  truth ;  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment, with  the  Incarnation  for  its  light  and  glory, 
evidently  has  not  lost  or  thrown  away  that  truth. 


The  Great  Expectation.  363 

No  religion  can  live  and  be  thoroughly  strong 
unless  it  keeps  that  truth  of  the  activity  of  God. 
Some  religions,  like  Calvinism,  have  kept  it  so  strongly 
that  they  have  lost  or  made  little  of  the  other  truth, 
of  the  activity  of  man.  In  our  time,  as  I  said,  man 
is  so  aware  of  himself,  and  of  what  he  has  to  do,  that 
there  is  sometimes  danger  lest  he  forget — sometimes 
he  certainly  has  forgotten — the  activity  of  God. 

Let  us  remember  that  great  truth,  and  then,  does 
not  man's  expectation  of  the  future  lift  itself  up  and 
become  wonderfully  enlarged  ?  Not  merely,  I  shall 
grow  so  that  I  shall  be  able  to  understand  vastly 
more  of  what  God  is  and  of  what  He  is  doing.  God 
also  will  be  ever  doing  new  things.  He  is  forever 
active.  He  has  purposes  concerning  me  which  He 
has  not  yet  unfolded.  Therefore  each  year  grows 
sacred  with  wondering  expectation.  Therefore  I  and 
the  world  may  go  forth  from  each  old  year  into  the 
new  which  follows  it,  certain  that  in  that  new  year 
God  will  have  for  us  some  new  treatment  which 
will  open  for  us  some  novel  life. 

The  world,  as  it  looks  back  upon  the  past  years, 
knows  that  God's  active  care  for  it  has  proved  itself 
abundantly  in  all  his  various  treatments.  One  year 
He  lifted  the  curtain  from  a  hidden  continent,  and 
gave  his  children  a  whole  new  world  in  which  to 
carry  out  His  purposes.  Another  year  He  revealed  to 
them  a  strange,  simple,  little  invention  which  made 
the  treasured  knowledge  of  the  few  to  be  the  free 
heritage  of  all.  Another  year  He  touched  the  solid 
frame  of  a  great  spiritual  despotism,  and  it  trembled 


364  The  Great  Expectation. 

and  quaked,  and  thousands  of  its  slaves  came  forth 
free  men.  Another  year,  in  our  own  time,  in  our  own 
land,  He  sent  the  message  of  liberty  to  a  nation  of  bond- 
men, and  the  fetters  fell  off  from  their  limbs.  We  call 
these  events  of  history.  They  have  a  right  to  be  call- 
ed the  comings  of  the  Lord.  They  all  are  echoes  and 
illustrations  of  that  great  coming  of  the  Lord  from 
which  they  who  have  known  of  it  agree  by  instinc- 
tive consent  to  date  their  history,  the  birth  of  the 
child  of  Bethlehem,  the  Man  of  Nazareth  and  Cal- 
vary, into  the  world. 

When  we  once  think  thus  of  the  events  of  history 
as  the  activities  of  God,  as  the  comings  of  the  Lord 
to  man,  then  there  comes  a  great  vitality  into  the 
story  of  mankind.  It  is  all  alive.  And  then  we 
stand  before  the  yet  unopened  history  of  a  new  year, 
and  say,  "  What  will  God  do  ?  "  Something  of  what 
he  will  do  we  can  guess,  as  a  child  can  guess  some- 
thing of  the  future  actions  of  the  wisest  man  by  intui- 
tions of  his  character ;  but  what  we  guess  is  very  little 
and  very  vague.  Still  there  is  enough  left  on  which 
to  feed  our  wonder.  What  will  God  do  this  year? 
How  will  he  come  near  to  man  ?  It  may  be,  0  that 
it  might  be !  that  he  will  break  up  this  awful  slug- 
gishness of  Christendom,  this  terrible  torpidity  of 
the  Christian  Church,  and  give  us  a  great,  true  revi- 
val of  religion.  It  may  be  that  he  will  speak  some 
great  imperious  command  to  the  brutal  and  terrible 
spirit  of  war,  and  will  open  the  gate  upon  a  bright 
period  of  peace  throughout  the  world.  It  maybe 
that  he  will  draw  back  the  curtain  and  throw  some 


The  Great  Expectation.  365 


of  his  light  upon  the  question,  of  how  the  poor  and 
the  rich  may  live  together  in  more  cordial  brother- 
hood. It  may  be  that  he  will  lead  up  from  the 
depths  of  their  common  faith  a  power  of  unity  into 
the  sects  of  a  divided  Christendom.  Perhaps  he  will 
smite  this  selfishness  of  fashionable  life,  and  make  it 
earnest.  Perhaps  by  some  terrible  catastrophe  he 
will  teach  the  nation  that  corruption  is  ruin,  and 
that  nothing  but  integrity  can  make  any  nation 
strong.  Perhaps  this  !  perhaps  that !  We  make  our 
guesses,  and  no  man  can  truly  say.  Only  we  know 
that  with  a  world  that  needs  so  much,  and  with  a 
God  who  knows  its  needs  and  who  loves  it  and 
pities  it  so  tenderly,  there  must  be  in  the  long  year 
some  approach  of  His  life  to  its  life,  some  coming  of 
the  Lord  ! 

And  if  we  know  this  of  the  world,  shall  we  not  also 
know  it  of  ourselves  ?  For  us  too  God  is  certainly 
active.  We  look  forward  into  the  opening  months 
and  we  say,  Yes,  no  doubt  something  will  happen, 
some  change  will  come.  It  may  be  one  thing  or 
another.  It  may  be  fuller  life;  it  may  be  death.  It 
may  be  what  we  wish  or  what  we  dread.  When  we 
are  young  men  we  try  to  anticipate  what  is  coming. 
As  we  grow  to  be  older  men  we  are  very  apt  to  give 
that  up  in  hopelessness  and  merely  wonder  what  will 
come.  If  we  have  no  religion  (or  do  not  use  the 
religion  which  we  have,  as  many  religious  men  do 
not),  we  think  of  what  will  happen  as  the  falling  of 
accidents  or  as  the  maturing  of  self-ripening  pro- 
cesses.    If  we  think  of  it  at  all  religiously,  we  talk 


366  The  Great  Expectation. 

about  God  sending  messages  to  us.  If  our  religion 
is  a  real  life  thing,  we  feel  God  actually  coming  to  us 
Himself,  in  all  the  unknown  things  which  are  to 
happen  to  us  before  another  New  Year's  day.  Ah,  af- 
ter all,  that  is  everything.  To  know  that  there  is  no 
accident.  To  know  that  indeed  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  mere  message  of  God.  To  know  that  He 
is  always  coming  to  us.  To  know  that  there  is 
nothing  happening  to  us  which  is  not  His  coming. 
To  know  all  that,  is  to  find  the  most  trivial  life  made 
solemn,  the  most  cruel  life  made  kind,  the  most  sad 
and  gloomy  life  made  rich  and  beautiful. 

These  are  the  two  ways  then  in  which  the  Lord 
comes,  is  always  coming,  to  His  servants.  He  opens 
their  eyes  to  see  how  near  He  is  already,  and  He  does 
actually  draw  nearer  to  their  lives.  And  now  I  must 
say  a  little  about  the  other  words  of  St.  Paul  in  this 
text  of  ours,  in  which  he  describes  what  ought  to  be 
the  result  of  this  expectation  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
upon  a  man's  life.  "Let  your  moderation  be  known 
unto  all  men.  The  Lord  is  at  hand."  Moderation ! 
Is  not  the  word  almost  strange  at  first  ?  Does  it  not 
almost  chill  us?  Moderation  !  we  cry.  Nay,  but  in 
him  whose  soul  is  full  of  glorious  expectation  will 
not  enthusiasm  be  the  great  condition  ?  Will  not  his 
soul  expand  and  claim  its  larger  heritage  ?  Will 
not  those  other  words  of  Paul  describe  him  to  him- 
self: "All  things  are  yours !  "  Who  shall  talk  to  him 
of  moderation  ?     What  a  hard,  cold  word  it  is ! 

But  this  word  moderation — forbearance,  the  new 
version  renders  it — is  one  of  St.  Paul's  great  words. 


The  Great  Expectation.  36) 

Men  are  known  by  their  favorite  words.  And  as 
Paul  uses  this  word  it  has  more  meaning  in  it  than 
we  can  put  into  any  one  single  word  by  which  we 
can  translate  it.  Indeed  it  is  one  of  those  words 
descriptive  of  character,  which  have  no  hope  of  being- 
understood  except  as  they  find  a  conception  of  the 
character  which  they  try  to  describe  already  present 
in  the  mind  of  him  to  whom  the  description  is  given, 
and  are  able  to  point  to  it  and  to  say:  "That  is 
what  I  mean."  It  is  self-restraint,  it  is  self-pos- 
session. 

There  is — all  man's  self-knowledge  has  borne 
witness  to  it — there  is  somewhere  in  the  human 
mind  an  image  of  human  character  in  which  all  way- 
ward impulses  are  restrained,  not  by  outside  compul- 
sion, but  by  the  firm  grasp  of  a  power  which  holds 
everything  into  obedience  from  within  by  the  cen- 
tral purpose  of  the  life.  This  character  dreads  fury 
and  excitement  as  signs  of  feebleness.  It  hates  ex- 
aggeration of  statement,  because  exaggeration  of 
statement  means  weakness  of  belief.  It  shrinks 
from  self-display  just  in  proportion  as  it  accepts  the 
responsibilities  of  selfhood.  It  is  patient  because  it 
is  powerful.  It  is  tolerant  because  it  is  sure.  It 
is  hopeful  for  every  man  because  it  has  found  solid 
ground  in  the  midst  of  the  great  turmoil  for  itself  to 
stand  on,  and  believes  that  all  other  men  have  the 
same  right  to  solid  ground  to  stand  on  as  itself.  It 
is  this  character,  I  think,  which  St.  Paul  calls  by  his 
great  word  moderation.  It  is  self-possession.  It  is 
the  self  found  and  possessed  in  God.     It  is  the  sweet 


368  The  Great  Expectation. 

reasonableness  which  was  in  Jesus,of  whom  it  was  writ- 
ten that  he  should  not  strive  nor  cry,  neither  should 
his  voice  be  heard  in  the  streets ;  that  he  should  not 
break  the  bruised  reed,  and  the  smoking  flax  he 
should  not  quench  until  he  sent  forth  judgment  un- 
to victory.  In  these  words  I  think  we  have  the  true 
description  of  what  St.  Paul  means  by  moderation. 

In  the  midst  of  eager  and  sometimes  frantic  strug- 
gles after  virtue  and  after  power,  is  there  not  some- 
thing very  great  and  refreshing  in  this  setting  up  of 
moderation  as  the  perfection  of  life  ?  Be  yourself  in 
God,  it  seems  to  say,  and  virtue  and  power  will  take 
care  of  themselves. 

And  St.  Paul  says  that  this  great  self-possession  in 
God  must  come  to  any  man  who  really  expects  the 
coming  of  the  Lord.  0,  my  dear  friends,  if  you  knew 
that  in  the  most  evident  of  all  ways,  which  is  by 
death,  the  Lord  were  coming  to  you  to-morrow,  and 
if  you  could  be  perfectly  free  from  all  base  feel- 
ing, from  fear  and  flurry,  from  defiance  and  from 
dread,  from  exaggerations  and  depressions  belonging 
to  that  awful  moment,  if  so  you  could  calmly  lie  and 
listen  while  the  great,  quiet  footsteps  came  nearer 
and  nearer  to  your  door,  what  would  be  the  condition 
which  it  would  make  in  you  ?  Would  it  be  anything 
like  this  which  I  have  tried  to  describe  ?  Would  it 
be  any  elevation,  refinement,  solemnity,  and  broad- 
ening of  life  ?  Would  it  be  the  calming  of  frivolity, 
the  release  of  charity,  the  kindling  of  hope  ?  Would 
it  not  be  all  of  these  ? 

Not  yet  for  us  does  that  great  solemn  footfall  sound 


The  Great  Expectation.  369 

outside  the  door.  But  none  the  less  is  the  Lord  at 
hand.  I  have  preached  to  you  in  vain  to-day  unless 
I  have  made  you  feel  that  He  is  always  at  hand.  All 
expectation  may  be  expectation  of  Him.  All  expec- 
tation then  ought,  if  Paul  is  right,  to  be  the  birth- 
place of  this  lofty  character  of  moderation.  And  is 
it  not  ?  Tell  me,  what  would  you  like  to  do  for  any 
friend  of  yours,  or  for  your  son,  who  was  foolishly 
exuberant,  overrunning  into  frivolities  and  quarrels 
and  silly  theories  of  life,  into  petulant  discontent 
and  all  the  base  ambitions  of  the  hour  ?  What  would 
you  like  to  do  to  save  him  ?  Would  you  not  be  sure 
that  if  you  only  could  set  a  noble  expectation  before 
him,  and  give  it  dominion  over  his  whole  soul,  he 
would  certainly  be  saved  ? 

That  is  St.  Paul's  doctrine !  There  is  salvation  for 
us  all.  Oh  friends,  the  old  year  is  fast  slipping  back 
behind  us.  We  cannot  stay  in  it  if  we  would.  We 
must  go  forth  and  leave  our  past.  Let  us  go  forth  no- 
bly. Let  us  go  as  those  whom  greater  thoughts,  and 
greater  deeds  await  beyond.  Let  us  go  humbly,  sol- 
emnly, bravely,  as  those  must  go  who  go  to  meet  the 
Lord.  With  firm,  quiet,  serious  steps,  full  of  faith, 
full  of  hope,  let  us  go  to  meet  Him  who  will  certainly 
judge  us  when  we  meet  him,  but  who  loves  us  while 
he  judges  us,  and  who,  if  we  are  only  obedient,  will 
make  us  by  the  discipline  of  all  the  years,  fit  for  the 
everlasting  world,  where  life  shall  count  itself  by 
years  no  longer. 
24 


A   Library   of  Information    in   One  Volume 


THE   TEMPLE 

BIBLE  DICTIONARY 

Edited  by 

The  Rev.  W.  EWING,  M.  A. 

The  Rev.  J.  E.  H.  THOMSON,  D.  D. 


Indispensable  to: 

The  Student 

The    Preacher 

The  Class   Leader 

The  Foreign  Missionary 

As  well  as  to 

Every  Christian  Household 

A  mine  of  rich  instruction  and  interest 


1100  Pages        500  Illustrations         8  Maps 

One  Volume  9%  x  Q%     Handsome  Maroon  Cloth 
Tinted  tops  and  edges       Price  $4.00,  net. 


THE    TEMPLE   BIBLE    DICTIONARY 


THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  DICTIONARY. 

THE  REV.  W.  EWING,  M.  A.,  the  Editor-in-Chief,  is  a 
native  of  the  South  of  Scotland.  He  graduated  from  the 
University  of  Glasgow  with  distinction  in  Logic  and  Moral 
Philosophy.  After  taking  a  post-graduate  theological  course 
at  the  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow,  he  studied  at  Leipzic 
under  Delitzch,  and  after  ordination  went  to  Palestine  as  a 
missionary — his  work  there  being  centered  principally  around 
Tiberias,  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 

Here  his  proficiency  in  the  native  tongues  and  his  persistent 
activity  made  him  an  influence  throughout  the  surrounding 
country,  both  in  the  villages  of  the  peasantry  and  in  the 
encampments  of  the  wandering  Arabs. 

Returning  to  England  in  1893,  Mr.  Ewing  has  occupied 
important  pulpits  in  Birmingham,  Glasgow,  Stirling,  and 
Edinburgh. 

He  has  also  contributed  a  great  deal  to  current  literature  on 
oriental  subjects.  He  wrote  many  of  the  articles  dealing  with 
the  East  in  the  dictionaries  edited  by  Dr.  Hastings,  and  is  the 
author  of  the  well  known  book,  "Arab  and  Druze  at  Home." 

For  upwards  of  seven  years  he  has  contributed  articles  on 
oriental  subjects  to  the  American  Sunday  School  Times,  thus — 
so  to  speak — preparing  himself  for  the  very  responsible  posi- 
tion he  now  occupies  as  editor  of  the  TEMPLE  BIBLE  DIC- 
TIONARY. 

DR.  J.  E.  H.  THOMSON,  D.  D.,  the  Associate  Editor,  is 
also  a  Glasgow  University  graduate,  but  took  his  post-graduate 
work  at  Edinburgh,  where  he  was  medallist  in  Logic  and 
Moral  Philosophy. 

After  graduation  he  engaged  in  literary  work,  and  travelled 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  His  first  important  book,  "  Books 
Which  Influenced  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles,"  appeared  in  1891 
and  at  once  took  rank  as  a  standard  work  on  Apocalyptic  litera- 
ture and  gained  him  admission  to  the  staff  of  the  "Pulpit 
Commentary.  " 

In  1895,  Dr.  Thomson  went  to  Palestine  as  Free  Church 
Missionary  to  the  Jews,  and  was  stationed  at  Safed,  in 
Napthali,  the  loftiest  city  in  Palestine.  From  this  point  he 
made  frequent  journeys  throughout  Palestine  to  all  the 
points  famous  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 


THE   TEMPLE   BIBLE   DICTIONARY 


Briefly,  the  practical  experience  of  both  Editors  has  put 
them  in  a  position  to  know  what  is  needful  in  a  Bible  Diction- 
ary which  is  to  be  used  by  practical  workers  and  students — 
and  has  given  them  that  thorough,  first-hand  knowledge  of 
Bible  Lands  and  Peoples,  which  only  actual  contact  can 
bestow. 

THE  LIST  OF  CONTRIBUTORS  incmdes  manyof  the  best 
orientalists  and  archaeologists,  the  names  of  such  men  as  Pro- 
fessor Margolioth,  M.  A.,  Litt.  D.,  etc.,  professor  of  Arabic  in 
the  University  of  Oxford,  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce,  LL.D..D. 
C.  L.,  Litt.  D.,  professor  of  Assyriology  in  the  same  Univer- 
sity, the  Lord  Bishop  of  Ripon,  Professors  Mackintosh  of 
Edinburgh  University,  Wenley  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 
DaJman  of  Leipzic,  Anderson  Scott  of  Cambridge,  James 
Robertson  of  Glasgow,  being  guarantees  of  accuracy,  scholar- 
ship, culture  and  precision. 

THE  OBJECT  OF  THE  WORK: 

The  results  of  the  research  and  criticism  have  in  the  last 
few  years  been  cumulative  in  their  effect.  Egypt  and  the 
Euphrates  Valley,  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  Palestine  itself, 
through  the  researches  of  Ramsay,  Petrie,  Conder  and  others, 
have  yielded  up  enough  of  their  secrets  for  us  to  be  able  to 
lift  with  practical  completeness  the  veil  which  has  for  centuries 
obscured  Bibical  lands  from  the  accurate  comprehension  of 
Western  people. 

At  the  same  time  the  vastly  conflicting  views  of  scholars 
with  regard  to  the  date,  authorship,  mode  of  composition,  trust- 
worthiness, etc.  of  the  various  books  of  the  Canon  of  Scripture 
have  settled  down  to  a  stable  mean  which  is  not  liable  to  vary 
very  much  for  many  years  to  come — either  in  the  direction  of 
conservatism  or  in  that  of  radical  departure  from  accepted 
values. 

Consequently  it  has  seemed  to  the  editors  that  this  is  a 
favorable  period  at  which  to  put  forth  a  work  which  shall 
embody  late  results  in  both  Biblical  Archaeology  and  Critical 
Inquiry  without  the  prospect  of  its  almost  immediately  becom- 
ing out  of  date  in  either  department. 

Excellent  work  has  been  done  in  some  larger  Dictionaries  of 
the  Bible  recently  published,  but  their  size  and  price  put  them 


THE    TEMPLE    BIBLE   DICTIONARY 


beyond  the  reach  of  many  who  are  keenly  alive  to  the  neces- 
sity for  competent  and  trustworthy  guidance  in  the  study  of 
the  Scriptures. 

The  Editors  therefore  believe  that  there  is  room  for  a  Dic- 
tionary such  as  this,  which,  leaving  aside  all  that  is  merely 
theoretical  and  speculative,  presents  simply,  shortly  and 
clearly  the  state  of  ascertained  knowledge  on  the  subjects 
dealt  with,  at  a  price  which  brings  the  latest  results  of 
scholarly  investigation  within  the  reach  of  every  earnest 
student  of  the  Bible,  and  which  for  the  working  clergyman, 
the  local  preacher,  the  class  leader,  the  Sunday  School  teacher, 
the  travelling  missionary,  offers  an  indispensable  vade-mecum 
of  scientific  and  critical  knowledge  about  Biblical  lands,  peo- 
ples and  literature. 

THE  BOOK  ITSELF: 

The  volume  is  a  singularly  handsome  one  of  eleven  hundred 
pages,  9  inches  by  6%  in  size,  bound  in  dark  maroon  cloth, 
with  gilt  back  and  tinted  top  and  edges.  There  are  over  500 
explanatory  illustrations  —  many  from  entirely  new  photo- 
graphs— and  eight  colored  maps. 

A  sensible  series  of  ingenious  contractions,  not  only  of 
proper  names,  but  of  ordinary  words  also,  has  made  it  possible 
to  pack  information  very  much  closer  in  these  pages  than  is 
usual  elsewhere. 

The  Dictionary  to  the  Apocrypha  is  in  a  section  by  itself, 
with  a  special  introductory  article.  There  are  also  special 
articles  on:  The  Influence  of  the  Bible  on  English  Literature; 
The  New  Testament  Apocrypha;  Apocalyptic  Literature j  The 
Targums;  Versions  of  the  Scripture;  Philo  Judaeus;  Josephus; 
and  The  Language  of  Palestine  in  the  time  of  Christ;  while 
in  the  Text  of  the  Dictionary  everything  possible  has  been 
done  by  the  use  of  thin  opaque  paper,  appropriate  sizes  of 
type,  and  a  serviceable  system  of  cross-references  to  make  the 
book  more  legible,  more  intelligible,  and  more  generally  com- 
fortable to  read  than  any  other  book  of  its  kind  in  existence. 

It  is  the  devout  hope  of  the  Editors  that  at  last  a  Bible 
Dictionary  has  been  produced  which  will  be  the  standard  of 
its  kind  for  many  years  to  come,  both  as  to  fullness  and  erudi- 
tion of  contents  and  to  mechanical  excellence  of  bookmaking. 


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